Joshua

Joshua
Department	Architecture Team
Layer	Atziluth
Assignment	WhiteNight CENSORED [ REDACTED ]
Equipment
Equipment	E.G.O Weapon - Paradise Lost E.G.O Suit - Magic Bullet E.G.O Gift - Gold Rush E.G.O Gift - Refraction E.G.O Gift - Amrita
Titles
Level I	N/A
Level II	N/A
Level III	N/A
Level IV	N/A
Level V	Sharp-Tempered Grand Senior

"Tsk. You never changed, not even after all these years. Tell me, old friend, do you really think the cycle will be broken this time? What you've put us through is always set up to fail. Do you just enjoy this, I wonder? Or are you simply projecting the pain of your past mistakes unto others so that you may absolve yourself from the guilt?"
― Joshua

Joshua is an Employee and Captain of the Architecture Team, working directly under the Manager, A. He also is the stand-in of the Sephirah, Keter; and before A's arrival, the stand-in manager. The player meets him on Day 45 shortly before the final stretch of the game. On Day 46 onwards, Joshua will be available for Deployment as the Architecture Team Captain. He immediately starts out at Level V with all his stats maxed out at EX.

Joshua is an man of average height standing at 5'7. He is very well toned and muscular. His face is square in shape, his eyes are dark brown, and his hair medium blue. Without the Cognition Filter, Joshua is shown to have dark skin.

A very mysterious, very High Grade Employee, Joshua is the one Senior Employee whose assignments strictly fall under the ALEPH classification. He works with the extremely high risk WhiteNight as his main assignment, with the other known assignment being CENSORED. Joshua alludes to having more assignments that he works alone with, but these Abnormalities are never disclosed as they are purposely hidden from the Information Databases of the facility. This hints to the Abnormalities being just as high-risk as his more public assignments.

Personality

Joshua is a very controlled and collected individual, who is extremely no-nonsense as a first impression. He is a man of very few words and does not beat around the bush, being as blunt and direct as possible. He exudes a powerful air of authority and uses this impression to keep others at a distance.

He takes his work very seriously and is incredibly strict about his and others' conduct and work ethic. Joshua tries to be a perfectionist about his work, and takes an alarmingly calculated approach, almost as if he has rehearsed the whole scenario. It's noted that he does not take too well to mistakes, becoming distraught and fretting over the consequences. He has a fixation on failure, begrudging seeing his own mistakes repeat and he could do nothing about them, lest he is "threatened with another reset".

Joshua refuses to look at others, sparing himself the pain of further drilling in the reality that he is living through another cycle. He cannot express his actual genuine concern towards others through words, and instead only does his best to protect them and keep their numerous deaths and repeats from being in vain. He also seems to care for Angela, whom he is fiercely protective of, and is willing to commit atrocities if it meant that they could be set free.

Hidden deep within his heart is a hatred and grudge so intense that he was willing to wait ten years to act out his revenge. As calculated Joshua may be, he is blinded by hatred and pain, directing it towards X, who had trapped him for reasons he could not fathom. This is seen when Joshua meets X for the first time in a new cycle, perfectly rehearsing his script and spitefully challenging X to finally set them free from "the hell he created." In the true ending, it is revealed that Joshua had attempted to kill X (now Ayin) but failed before the latter could step into the light, causing him to have a severe breakdown at his failure.

Story

History

Joshua Bernard Valdez was born as the fifth of seven children to a poor family in the Backstreets of District 3, running a well to do utility workshop. Although the workshop was doing well, it was still barely enough to feed nine people and keep the way of life comfortable. Not to mention, the lifestyle in District 3 was expensive, being overseen by the Wing, C Corporation. Joshua's older siblings were trying hard to scrape by for jobs in the Wings, applying to even the ones that had the lowest entry level just to help improve their way of living. For his early years, Joshua was homeschooled by his parents and older siblings, being unable to afford schooling.

Comfort; however, came at a price. As Joshua's older siblings had finally found jobs in Nests and Wings, it was easier for the family to have four avenues of large, steady income per month. With now only five mouths to feed, Joshua and his younger siblings were sent to formal schooling. Unwilling to waste his siblings' money, Joshua strived hard to do well. While he was doing well in school, the same could not be said for his home life. While his parents could finally afford better and more secure housing, they began to take their living situation for granted: spending lavishly over unnecessary things and only began to see their four eldest children as moneymakers. It only got worse when they received promotions and larger salaries. It soured Joshua's view on their lifestyle, as he was scared he would never see his older siblings again because of their jobs at the Wings. It wouldn't be too long until one of them died as well, the family being given a very handsome monetary compensation. It went to their lifestyle rather than saving for the future.

Eventually, just as he graduated high school with honors, he was sick of his home life. He was still hurting over how his parents simply brushed off the death of one of his siblings. It all came to blows when he called his parents out for their disgusting behavior, and when they refused to listen to him, Joshua up and left. He felt guilt for taking his siblings' sacrifices for granted, and lived off what little money he could scrape from his family. He studied to become a Fixer; but without a place to go in the City, was given no choice but to live in the Outskirts. With what little he could scrape up, he was taken as an apprentice under a Grade 5 Fixer who ran their own Office. What was interesting to them was this boy who lived in the Outskirts and continued to survive, even with what little tutelage they gave him.

Joshua merely considered himself lucky to even be alive. A factor of his survival was that he studies the behaviors of the creatures that roamed the Outskirts: from the rejects of the City to the strange, naturally occurring phenomenon of Abnormalities. He used this to his advantage; hunting them, capturing them, and fashioning weapons from them. He had amassed a wide array of biologically engineered weapons at his disposal, making him a unique sort of Fixer from the get-go. He never joined an office, and often was a collector of strange materials for Offices and Clients who paid him well for the job. When other Fixer Offices would go on Outskirts Expeditions, he was their navigator if there were jobs he could not take on his own. This caught the interest of numerous high Grade Offices that wanted him to join their ranks, but Joshua declined all of them, remaining in the Outskirts and only going back into the City if he needed to.

However, this sort of existence led Joshua into living a cyclical life of misery. Nothing truly seemed to get better and he was merely existing trying to survive. A fateful day changed this for him; however, as he witnessed the construction of a laboratory in the Ouskirts. Curious, he watched on, until being approached by the proprietor, Carmen. Meeting Carmen greatly impacted Joshua's life, as intertwining her presence into his life had permanently changed it. She was different from the people of the City, a little too bright and idealistic to Joshua's tastes. But her charisma and her dreams of a world where there was no longer a need for people being forced to live on human suffering, carnage and monetary matters, as grandiose as it sounded, was what Joshua needed to hear. It was simply a matter of hearing Carmen at the right place at the right time. Carmen offered for Joshua to work with her, as his specialization would significantly help her research progress, and he could make his life better. It was a promise she made to the spiritually stagnant Joshua, who needed just a little more drive to keep living.

Joshua became one of Carmen's fellow researchers at her Laboratory, befriending her student Ayin and his friend Benjamin. He watched as she began her research on "The Seed of Light", to return the extinguished light to the souls of people. She spoke about the disease of the mind, which Joshua simply just could not deny its existence.

Starting out at Carmen's laboratory, Joshua felt out of place as there was no avenue for him to even provide assistance to the research. This was the case up until Carmen introduced him to the use of Cogito, which extracted strange beings from the subconscious of their test subjects. Joshua easily identified them as Abnormalities, and initially was the one who kept them in line and suppressed them. He disciplined these beings to the best of his ability through performing different work types based on his observations, which helped Carmen produce more Cogito and energy to help in her research. However, without proper containment units for the Abnormalities, Joshua continued to juggle his work between data gathering and suppression.

His specialty with Abnormalities was what put him in sort of a special position among the researchers. He was the most familiar and thus he was the one to orient everyone on how to approach these Abnormalities. Initially, Joshua was then relegated to the people who would eventually become the department heads of the laboratory, bringing more order to the research process and covering more within the scope of the Seed of Light. This led to Joshua becoming the de facto manager, handling the employees and researchers while Ayin directly assisted Carmen.

Joshua put his own authority into question upon the arrival of The Ivory Saint and The Red Mist. However; both women were cordial with him, and explained to him that although Color Fixers, their positions were not entirely fit for managerial work, and focused on suppression and protecting the Laboratory from outside threats. Joshua did not exactly realize how much power he held in the laboratory, answering directly to Carmen and Ayin and collating all the research done. Before he knew it, he was an integral part of the Seed of Light, tightly intertwined with Ayin, Carmen and Benjamin.

Things took a turn for the worst when Enoch had died in an experiment, which completely broke Carmen after what apparently was a mountain of failures. Joshua made desperate attempts to continue Carmen's research while tending to her emotionally, only failing in the latter when Carmen made an attempt on her life. A rift began to form between Ayin and Joshua when Ayin extracted Carmen's nervous system to continue producing Cogito, while Joshua pleaded to continue the research as they always had. However; with Ayin's coldness and vision, he saw farther into the future as compared to the short sighted Joshua. The latter helplessly bore witness to Ayin taking over Carmen's research, stepping into the unknown that Carmen could not.

Progressing significantly with the research did not come without a price, as there would always have to be casualties. There were some who were unhappy with the cruel direction Ayin took. Ayin retaliated, unwilling to compromise the research and thus putting Carmen's dream on hold. This caused the rift between Joshua and Ayin to grow, and even when Ayin revealed the true, selfish delusions of those who opposed him, Joshua denied the truth, hinging on the rift growing between them and how Carmen would never push to go this far. Dissidents aside, Ayin was willing to make sacrifices, even if it cost the lives of the department heads. Joshua fell into an ever growing pit of hatred and vengeance towards Ayin, blinded by his feelings to properly understand that Ayin was willing to become the necessary evil to fulfill Carmen's dreams. He watched as his department heads died one by one, with Ayin extracting Abnormalities from their brains.

Everything came to blows when it was revealed that Michelle, a researcher, could not take the cruelty of their research anymore and reported their activity to The Head. The Head promptly responded by sending in a task force to completely wipe out the facility and kill all the staff, putting a stop to their research. Understaffed with only few able bodied combatants, it was a losing battle. Losing the lives of Iona, her second in command Micah and Kali significantly crippled any chance of survival. During the attack, Joshua had gone through an intense power surge, manifesting his own incomplete EGO, the objective of their research. It was thanks to his EGO that he even had a chance of survival, and managed to escape at the behest of Kali, who laid down her own life to allow others to escape.

Overtaken with survivor's guilt, Joshua's EGO had become unstable, nearly overtaking him and causing him to distort into an Abnormality of himself. Unwilling to give into his despair, Joshua was then driven by revenge against Ayin, believing that if he didn't take the research to such dire lengths, then Michelle would never have done what she did, and they would all still be able to continue peacefully. Joshua was unwilling to distort, no matter how loud he heard foreign voices in his head feeding into his guilt and anguish. Among those voices were Carmen's, who spoke to him with sympathy and pity. This was a result of being exposed to her research, as the effects she desired were manifesting in him. Joshua fought with himself constantly, agonizing in pain while he tried to steel himself. The experience had caused him to emotionally shut down, as a way to control his EGO and prevent being overtaken by distortion.

Joshua's rage towards Ayin never faded, but losing hope in finding Ayin and killing him, Joshua decided to try and continue living. He was not going to take his life without killing the man whom he believed ruined it for everyone. He returned to his life as a Fixer, putting up his one-man Office. He; however, climbed the ranks alarmingly fast. This was all thanks to his EGO's abilities, giving him the capability to handle Star of the City Level threats as well as disposing of Color Fixers who had gone stray and declared enemies of state. This was mysterious for the Hana Association, who investigated his abilities. Without the knowledge of EGO and Distortion, Joshua's supernatural abilities were chalked up to a strange natural occurence, not very uncommon in the City. With his achievements and alarmingly rapid promotions, Joshua went from his previous Grade 7 Rank all the way up to a Color in the span of months, being dubbed The Silver Harbinger by the Hana.

With his job now as a Color Fixer, Joshua kept control of himself for an incredibly long time, using his work to prevent himself from succumbing to his own thoughts and thus distorting. He was, in a sense, a more distinguished Color, and other Colors feared him because of Fixers like them dying by Joshua's hand. Nobody could properly explain his power, allowing him to remain an enigma for quite some time.

All hell broke loose on the outbreak of the Smoke War, where an unknown faction rallied up numerous groups and Wings, including R Corporation, to destroy the current L Corporation to put up a new Wing in its stead. Joshua, as a Color, was not entirely required to participate in the War, but in the ensuing chaos, there were factions that heard about a certain survivor from the "cause of the Smoke". Confused, Joshua went to investigate this cause of the Smoke, only to be distraught at the mere sight of it. Immediately, he knew who was behind the war, and was stunned and did not know what to make of it all. He later found out that there were groups trying to identify his name, figuring out that he matched the description of that same survivor from the cause of the Smoke. Not risking anything, Joshua went into hiding, desperately trying to keep his life. He was again contacted by Benjamin, who promised him that he will hide him from his pursuers should he choose to reconnect with them. Without a choice and wanting to lose his pursuers, Joshua accepted Benjamin's offer, even willing to set aside his differences with Ayin as a form of gratitude for bringing him to safety and securing his anonymity.

It was expected; however, that not all things would go well. He bore witness to what Ayin had made from the old Department Heads: Qlipha; protoype robots powered with the salavaged brains of the old Department Heads. These were the prototypes to what will later become the Sephirah, as the Qlipha retained too much of their past rage and memories, becoming increasingly violent after every reset. Joshua looked on in horror as he also found out that not only did this happen to them, but significantly dangerous ALEPH level Abnormalities were extracted from them. To Ayin, only Joshua's presence calmed them down, and made them easy to work with, assigning him to his old friends.

What truly broke Joshua and bent him all the way back into his revenge plot against Ayin was the creation of Angela: an AI modeled after Carmen, who kept her memories, but yet ultimately was not Carmen. Joshua declared Ayin a madman, but Ayin was relentless, even moreso after wallowing over the creation of Angela, which emotionally distrubed him. Ayin told Joshua that he was to keep Angela company and to ensure she followed the Script, while filling in his shoes as manager as he prepared himself for the script that will fully realize the Seed of Light. In truth, Ayin never truly wanted to hurt Joshua, pained by his blind rage and hatred (although he could never truly fault him for it). Instead, he wanted Joshua to see and understand the necessity of his actions. He was forced to reveal it to Joshua the way he did, simply because the former refused to listen. For Joshua to understand, Ayin knows that he shouldn't be allowed to forget, subjecting him to remembering each and every cycle, ingraining into him that the Script should be followed, and they will all be set free. With Ayin taking his leave, Joshua was left as the de facto manager of what was now Lobotomy Corporation.

Not trusting Ayin, Joshua intended to defy the Script, yet he simply wanted to know what would happen with Angela in charge. This was her role to play, and it was only his role to manage the facility and keep her company. He watched as she spiraled into her own agony, as well as fighting the creeping feelings of his own with each reset. No matter how many times they tried to defy the Script, it would just lead them back to square one. Clinging onto one last thing to set himself free, Joshua then started planning his long, long revenge on Ayin, whom he believed was punishing him for what has happened between them when Carmen still lived. With this common hatred for Ayin, Joshua began to plot alongside Angela, who also developed her own free will and wanted to be free of her own agony. Locked up in the Architecture Department with no choice but to follow the Script, Joshua played his part as Ayin's stand in manager, awaiting his arrival at the finale of the Script.

Plot

For the past ten years, Joshua maintained his position as the mysterious manager of Lobotomy Corporation, whose face isn't even well known by even his own employees in Architecture. He has become extremely controlled, no longer showing any signs of genuine emotion and retains a callous disposition while doing work. His face is only known by the Captains of the different departments, meeting him only once every month for strategy meetings. He has also become some sort of an urban legend among the Employees, as he was only seen on two occasions throughout those ten years: the suppression of WhiteNight and the suppression of Apocalypse Bird. In those occasions, he was seen by all, but never seen again afterwards.

What truly kept him in Architecture was not only his duty as manager, but to manage the extremely high risk Abnormalities that were contained in the Department. These Abnormalities were extracted from the old Department Heads, and their anguish during death was what allowed for their Abnormalities to be extremely violent. Joshua had to make sure that none of them were ever to breach, or it could spell a catastrophe to the facility.

He meets Ayin again during the last five days before the completion of the Seed of Light scenario, repeating his speech that he masterfully rehearsed over the many resets. He speaks to Ayin spitefully, lamenting over the numerous resets they had to suffer because of him, and his journey to try and redeem himself at the cost of hundreds if not thousands of others in the past ten years. Joshua confidently declares that when they reach the end of the line, perhaps both of them will get to see who really was right all this time. During the final days of the scenario, Joshua's presence was known throughout the facility, taking out the Colors and Claws that manifested from Ayin's memories. He also went toe to toe with Binah, or at least the manifested memory of her Meltdown, wherein he finally settled the score between them in his own way, and overcoming one of the demons of his past.

When the Seed of Light was finally complete, it turns out that Joshua was indeed conniving with Angela, and that his hatred had blinded him to the point that he agreed to thwart Ayin's plans. In the true ending, as the Light was being spread throughout the City, Joshua took the opportunity to finally kill Ayin, acting out his revenge that he planned for the last ten years. He knew that if he killed Ayin earlier, it would reset. He knew this, because in previous cycles, he had been too excited, and caused hard resets by killing Ayin.

His own plans; however, were thwarted due to the unprecedented chaos that broke out in the facility; with Angela overriding the system. This threw Joshua off, and before he could land the killing blow on Ayin, the latter crawled into the light, leaving Joshua unfulfilled and causing him to snap and break down. In his anguish, he was indiscriminate. His EGO was coming undone and he showed signs of distortion, only being held together by the Light and keeping him in a state of stasis between EGO and Distortion. He killed Employees and Abnormalities alike, including the gruesome execution of Senior Agent Yuri, who had reverted back to his original form: the Arbiter Oriana, after coming face to face with the Abnormality Ghost Shell. Angela bore witness to Joshua's anguish, and she promised him that she would make his suffering end even for just a short while. She approached him in his broken state, telling him that he can rest for a short while. He looked to her tearfully, apologizing that he failed to uphold his end of the bargain. Angela disagreed, telling him that he did uphold his end of the bargain, and that she upheld hers. Joshua held her hand and begged her to kill him with an Execution Bullet, which she obliged, the small kindness she could give to him in thanks for him being a companion she could have for the past ten years.

Later, Joshua would wake up in The Library, once again breaking down when he realized that he and Angela still could not be free.

Trivia

• Joshua is currently 36 years old and has been an Employee for over 10 years. His birthday is August 2. He has been the stand-in manager for the past 10 years as well.
• He can still hear Carmen's Voice, and is purposely shoving her voice down
• The [ REDACTED ] Abnormalities that Joshua handles are the Abnormalities of the old Department Heads, such as Lamb to Slaughter, Martyr Mary, The Ark, Madame Butterfly etc.
• Joshua comes from the name Yeshua, which somehow plays into his theme with Ayin being "Ayin me-Yesh" and "Yesh me-Ayin", which translates to "Nothing from Something" and "Something from Nothing".
• It is heavily implied that Joshua is able to go toe to toe with WhiteNight, having suppressed it prior and thus being able to wield its EGO weapon.
• At this point, Joshua has memorized his conversations with others, and what others say. This shows how many times he has relived these small moments during the many resets of the Seed of Light Scenario.
• During Gebura's Core Suppression, there is a chance that Joshua can appear in the facility, but only remains in Records and Extraction.
• When Ayin returned to become the manager, sometimes Joshua will overrun his orders to prevent unnecessary deaths that won't even affect the Seed of Light Scenario.
• Joshua has a strange friendship with Angela, their relationship being that of a marriage of convenience. However; in the eraly years of Lobotomy Corporation, there was in fact a blooming friendship between them, but the mental toll of the resets got the best of them, and now they simply remain colleagues.
• Sometimes, the Seed of Light Scenario would restart out of nowhere. This is because of instances where Joshua snaps after a severe breakdown and distorts. He retains the memory of these events as well.
• Joshua can look at CENSORED and not lose his mind. He has looked at it and remembered its visage for far too many times to even be bothered by it. Nothing it can do really scares him anymore.
• It is heavily implied that Joshua was the one who killed Benjamin before he was turned into Hokma
• If Joshua is not in the manager's office, he is in the Well, Carmen's room.
• Some Architecture Employees would mention that they would hear crying in the containment of the ALEPH Abnormality, Martyr Mary. This is Joshua breaking down, asking his friend Iona, the Ivory Saint and the Abnormality for guidance.
• Interestingly, Joshua's name means "deliverance", which may indicate Ayin's plans for him this whole time.
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