No matter the time or place, these Persona users struggled for their hard earned victories. Outside of battles, though, they had much more to deal with than just plowing through their enemies. Grinding for items, preparing spells and personas, coming in prepared--Who knew saving the world was so difficult!?
An old fic from a persona gift exchange.
Who knew a single day could change so much about the lives of a few people? Well, less so “a few people” and more so “the fate of an entire world.'' After spending so much time running around the city, chasing rumors, enemies, monsters of all kinds topped with world ending catastrophes--
One thing was beginning to dawn on this group of persona users, determined to see it through to the end. It wasn’t the first time it had occurred to them, of course. Only hours earlier, they were bribing detectives to go spread a few rumors around the city, transforming ordinary stores into weapons and healing supplies vendors.
It didn’t take long for at least one of them to find some humor in their larger than life situation. Maya clicked her tongue as Tatsuya sorted through his pockets and paid the store owner for the goods she was carrying. Once everything was sorted out, the group of five left, already making plans for where they needed to go next to chase this ominous new force threatening the city.
Then, Maya spoke up, voice light and casual.
“Pay some yen and we get a new person to sell us cool stuff, huh?” Maya laughed, carrying an armful of medical supplies out of the store. “It’s like...one of those games that kids play, right?”
“Huh?” Lisa looked up from the new boxing gloves that they had purchased. “Are you really comparing something like this to a video game? It’s completely different!”
Maya didn’t seem to be deterred by Lisa’s retorts. “I’m just joking! Of course something involving demons and magic is gonna feel like it’s out of a fantasy story, but I don’t think I’ve played enough games to gauge what world we’re living in now.”
“Leave it to Maya to suddenly come up with strange things to say.” Eikichi doubled checked his new guitar case, tapping it a few times to test its sturdiness. “There’s no time to be worrying about that junk.”
“But there’s time to be worrying about your hair?” Lisa laughed, watching him pull out his signature mirror for a quick check.
“Hey! That’s completely different!”
“Oh, really?”
Tatsuya stared at their bickering, then looked back down at the sword in his hands. Maybe he didn’t think they needed a mediator, or maybe he was just looking for an excuse to not get involved. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out that lighter that everyone there had seen the sight of once or twice, focusing on that and tuning out all the noise.
The argument had shifted to something completely different by the time that Yukino got them to calm down, but she couldn’t help but laugh a little at Maya’s questions as well.
--
“Bufu!” Maya’s voice boomed with the summoning of Maia, ice swirling around the helpless pixie as it dissolved under the power of the spell.
“Did I overdo it?” Maya sighed, watching how quickly the enemy went down.
“Aren’t you still a few thousand exp away from the next level?” Lisa sighed, sitting down and feeling her arm, a slash wound leaving her injured during the fight. Luckily, all it took was a quick Dia for the wound to close back up, like it was never there at all. “We should probably go hunt down some demons with more experience, these guys are all small fry now.”
“But don’t you remember?” Yukino interjected, staring at a few cards in her hands. “We need to get a few more Lovers card if we want to get you a new persona. Sure, the one you have now been carrying us through a lot of tough spots, but it reached its max rank a while ago. I say it’s better to get something new before we jump back into the fray again.”
Lisa looked a little sheepish, being pointed out as the reason why they were still at this school. “I mean, there’s gotta be some more powerful demons somewhere that have what we’re looking for.”
“We already beat up all the ones we could find in that factory! It’s either here, or we wait even longer trying to find the right demon,” Eikichi paused for dramatic effect, poofing up his hair, “not to mention we have to find out the weirdly specific action we need to do to make these things happy. I’d rather Tatsuya just do his impressions a million times over than have to deal with doing all kinds of wacky acts in front of another creature who’s five seconds away from kicking our asses.”
“Ugh, fine, but why can’t we just get some blank cards instead? That way we can use the extras to get whatever else we need.”
Yukino held her hand out for Lisa to grab, which she accepted readily. “Well, if you want to, we can always move on. No need to stay in one place for so long, right?” She started to walk down the hall, only taking a few steps before a flash of light filled her eyes. It was an all too familiar sensation, at this point. These demons never came at them expectantly, never rounded the corners or jumped out from under desks. In fact, it almost seemed to happen at complete random--one moment, they were just walking, then the next, there was another group of demons waiting to pick a fight.
“Can’t they just say hello first!?” Lisa groaned, lifting her fists in preparation. “Ugh, let’s get rid of these things and move on already!”
“Let’s just do this the way we always do this, got it!?” Yukino yelled. At her signal, Tatsuya and Lisa stood next to her, with Yukino and Tatsuya casting Agi while Lisa summoned the strongest Garu spell she could muster. A blaze began to form around the three slime creatures, growing higher and higher than what was necessary to take down a couple small creatures. By the time that the flames died down, they’d all but vanished, leaving the other two party members with little else to do.
“...Yeah, I think we need to find a better place to get these cards.” Maya laughed, slinging her arms behind her head. Revolvers and all.
--
“Tatsuya...hey!”
Maya’s voice was enough to pull him out of his daydreams, and focus on the battle ahead. Those memories, the jokes and arguments they all shared it...it all felt like it was so long ago. Then again, nothing could be more distant than a memory that spanned across the streams of time.
Though it would have been better to never remember. Gritting his teeth, Tatsuya casted Meltdown, eliminating the swarm of demons standing in their path. When he was confident that not a trace was left, he lowered his sword, walked forward--
And was grabbed seconds later by Katsuya. A stern look and a wave of his hand was followed by, “You’re injured. We all are. Let’s take a moment to recuperate before we move on. While we are pressed for time, that’s no reason to rush ahead and throw ourselves into danger.”
Around the rear of the group, Ulala took this moment to sit down, breathing heavily and clutching her arm in pain. “Ugh..this Ameno Torifune is no joke. If it wasn’t for some of our new spells, we’d have to go back again. Hey, Ma-ya, can I get a Diarahan here? My arm’s killing me.”
Maya nodded, saying, “Of course, of course! Here, hold it out for me…” Just like before, the wound sealed back up, but in addition to that, all the bruises and scratches that she accumulated also faded away, like she just stepped into the dungeon.
“Remember to conserve your SP and guard,” Baofu added, leaning against the wall and staring off into the distance. “We’re gonna need all the extra health we can get, when we’re already so far.”
“Hey, I know she charges waaaaay too much, but maybe we should’ve stopped at Trish once or twice.” Ulala added, watching as Maya steadied her breathing again. Casting spells like that took a lot of SP, and the last thing she wanted was to put more pressure on her best friend after they already passed the point of no return.
“Seriously? When someone suggests talkin’ to Trish for some healing, you know we’re desperate.” Even in times like this, Baofu inserted a couple joking remarks. Though his unphased demeanor was quickly compromised by the exhaustion hitting his body, sinking to the floor and resting completely.
Maya’s gaze flickered between them all, worry creasing her eyebrows. Well, wasn’t there always…?
Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the very depth of herself. One person she obtained recently had felt much--much closer. More familiar than any of the other one’s she had. It was easy enough to focus on that familiar power inside of her, feeling this other facet heed to her call.
“Artemis!”
With a single call, that persona appeared before her. Decorated in hues of light and dark blue, her parts, her very self seemed almost disconnected. Without any eyes, it was easy to convince yourself that you were staring at a robot, rather than a human. Or perhaps some sort of artificial creation of an otherworldly nature?
Who even knew why these personas took the form they did. Perhaps this was just what the world as a whole perceived said mythological figure. Regardless, all it took was one glance at the mythos surrounding this figure for one to understand why it was bestowed on a figure like her.
With the kind, gentle smile she always had, she said, “Mediarahan,” and a healing light, unlike any they were ever accustomed to, descended over the party. Unlike the ones caste before, it seemed to touch and influence everything near it, mending and healing beyond anything anyone had ever seen. It was a power she’s never shown before. A reach in her abilities that she’s only recently mastered, yet felt like they always belonged to her.
Once it was over, it was like they’d never even entered the ship. All minor and major injuries were patched up in an instant, a reset timer without any setbacks--
Maya looked proud at the effect that the spell had, sporting the same cheeky grin as always. “See, I got this cool spell card recently, and since it worked with Artemis and all, I thought I could make her even cooler with a powerful healing spell! Sorry for whipping it out of nowhere..Haha, I kinda forgot about it until now.”
Katsuya was frozen like a deer in the headlights, eyes wide from the sudden, powerful magic casted right in front of his eyes. How the hell do you even respond to something like that? He sputtered, springing to his feet. All of his exhaustion from moments before was just gone. Like always, he’ll never understand how that kind of magic works. There has to be some catch to it, right? Yet all that they needed was to walk around to regain the will to cast them again.
He’ll never understand this kind of power.
But maybe not all things were meant to be understood.
Baofu and Ulala lifted themselves off the ground, with Ulala pumping her fist in the air. “There we go! That’s my Ma-ya, she’s always got a new trick up her sleeve!”
“..Thank you.” Baofu offered her a respectful nod. “Let’s not go wasting this gift that she gave us.”
“Of course.” Tatsuya chimed in, pulling his sword back up in preparation for another surprise demon attack. “We’ll keep going. We...don’t have any other choice.”
“That’s a certain way of looking at it.” Katsuya mumbled, pushing up his glasses. “I’d say we should keep going for the sake of the world.”
It was almost familiar. Almost. The small conversations that took place between battles, rest, recovery, restocking--so familiar, yet ultimately different. Tatsuya felt a mixture of nostalgia and regret at seeing this group of persona users rile themselves up for the battle ahead.
No matter what, they won’t lose again.