I have no idea why I do this to myself. Young Justice/Persona crossover kind of…

Future slash, so, if you don't like you can go away. Pairings have yet to be decided.

"The Arcana is the means by which all is revealed..."

Chapter One-Journey's begun…

He hated this feeling, this heavy feeling in his chest. It was like he was carrying around this weight that he couldn't let go of. Superboy, or project Kr, moved around the Cave, restlessly. Everyone was gone. It's been a month since he was freed from Cadmus and he was alone. He didn't know where Miss Martin went. He only knew she wasn't here and hasn't been here for the past few days. The quiet was clawing at his ears, in his head. He paced the halls just so he could hear his own footsteps. But he couldn't hear anything. There were no heartbeats he could focus on. There is no cluttering in the kitchen that could distract him from his thoughts. He reached up and grips his hair, tugging just enough that the stabbing pain pulls him away from the silence that stalks the clone.

Everything was different. There was no pod. There were no scientists. There was no Superman…

His skin itched. But no matter how hard he scratched or how often he cleaned and washed, there was just that feeling that something was slithering underneath his skin. Sometimes, he feels the urge to do something. He doesn't know what. Something dangerous and painful but he's always been able to bring himself back from that precipice. He used the team, Canary, missions, the static from tv, to focus his attention. He hasn't been able to do that for the past few days and Superboy was finally reaching his limit.

He surged away from the training room where his feet had led him. Superman had turned away from him. Superman ran from him. Everyone kept telling him to be patient that the hero would come around. Superboy wasn't so sure if he believed them anymore.

So, he left. He left the Cave and made his way to the more populated part of Happy Harbor even though he was never given permission to leave. His steps were hurried. Superboy didn't look back or over his shoulder. He didn't want to see back into the world that he wasn't really a part of, the world that Superman didn't want him to be a part of. Superboy found his eyes were starting to sting. He stopped to touch his face and found it wet. His blue eyes widened. He knew what this was; he knew was it meant to cry. But he never thought that he would be one to cry, over Superman. He wiped his face with his hands but that did nothing to hide evidence of his turmoil. His eyes were bloodshot and puff, his cheeks flushed.

Superboy continued on his way into the city. It was nearing sundown and off in the distance, the clone could hear children laughing and music. Superboy followed the sound because it was loud and boisterous and alluring. His long strides lead Superboy toward a carnival. He doesn't know what they're celebrating and he doesn't care. He finds an open bench and sits down. Superboy leans back on the bench and lets the clamor of his surroundings to consume him.

He tries to find the resolve to let Superman go. He searches deep within himself to find the commitment to move forward without the Man of Steel.

"I don't need him." He whispers to himself, "I don't. I don't…"

Superboy feels his face get wet again and can't seem to find the energy to brush them away. So, centered on his own agitation, he completely misses when someone joins him on the bench.

"You have traveled far…" a voice speaks to him.

Superboy's head snaps to the person next him. The person is strange. It is a man, an old man. He is hunched over and wearing tattered clothes. His coat is old and has patches of fabric sown together. The man's face is wrinkled and they fall over the man's eyes. His face appears to be drawn into a state of perpetual sadness, his lips pulled down into a frown. The old man is shuffling a small deck of cards.

"…but the hardest part of any journey is always the next step." He offers the deck to Superboy, spread like a fan.

He makes no other movements. He is as still as a statue. Superboy sits there, frozen, staring at the cards. He tries to think like Batman and Robin but his head hurts from the crying he's done. The back of the cards were purple with a neutral mask shaded black and white in the center. There was a lyre in each corner and at the bottom was the phrase, "memento mori". For a moment, his mind clung to that phrase, urging him to consider it. But he couldn't really think, couldn't really see the words beyond the fact that they were on the card. He lifted a hand…and plucked a card but he didn't really feel it. He didn't feel anything at all.

The card he chooses depicts a person standing with a walking stick trapped within a sphere and a massive looking scarf of some kind arches itself over the person. On the bottom is the roman number for twenty, "XX". He didn't know what it meant.

"The Aeon Arcana…" the old man whispers, "…how fitting for one such as you."

Superboy stared at the old man, trying to understand, to comprehend but his limbs felt so heavy. Everything, every little movement cost too much energy, too much effort. The clone felt tired.

"Your Journey will be one filled with strife…" the old man continued, "but should you strengthen your resolve, give chase to your dream then the rewards are yours to possess."

Superboy is distracted by the card in his hand. It starts to glow a bright white and blinds him to his environment. He can see nothing. He can hear nothing. All around him is white. Then it changed. Everything started to hurt. The pounding in his head became unbearable. It tore at his eyes and robbed his voice. It blazed a trail, burning beneath his skin, eating the things no one else wants.

Like someone flicking a switch, the pain is gone. The light is gone. He is on the bench in the city. The card is gone. His hand is still glowing, pulsing with the same white light, runes etched into his skin. On his palm, were two shimmering X's, the roman number for twenty. A light sheen of sweat broke across his body. He felt cold. He felt hot. He was short of breath and his legs were shaking. Superboy looked up. The old man was gone.

The clone stood up quickly and stumbled. He searched frantically through the crowd before he found him. He hurried through the crowd but his body was lethargic, like it wasn't sure what to do. Superboy couldn't really understand what was happening to him. But the old man did. He knew so Superboy had to catch him.

So busy chasing the elusive figure that Superboy failed to notice how the field started to empty or how the stalls started to close. He missed how dark it had gotten or how quiet. He only stopped when he turned a corner and realized that the old man was gone. There was no one anywhere. The streets were deserted. In fact, they were abandoned. He fumbled with his hearing, trying to listen to any retreating footsteps, only to hear nothing. It was as if there was never any carnival to begin with.

Superboy turned around and around and around. The night was quiet. It hummed with a sense of wrongness. He could tell there was danger nearby but he couldn't tell if it was for him or running from him. It baffled him. For all that he was the clone of Superman, none of the hero's powers helped him. He was helpless and didn't even realize it.

He rushed down the street, hoping to find some clue or hint but what he found was three monsters. Superboy could describe them as nothing else: monsters. There three of them. One looked like a person wearing a jester's hat with two giant shadow-like hands wrapped around it. The last two looked like lions chained to a giant ball. The person said nothing but the two lions growled. Superboy roared and leaps near the closest one. He punches the animal once, twice, three times before he's tossed aside by the other one.

As Superboy skids across the concrete ground, the lion shakes his head and roars at the clone. The jester gives a high pitch twisted laugh. The clone couldn't describe it, couldn't describe how wrong two voices could sound so alive and yet dead. The nearest he could compare would be the Joker and yet, a part of him found that the Joker paled in comparison to this…thing.

Then it attacked. The hands opened and released a massive stream of ice. If it had been normal ice, it wouldn't have so much as scratched the Boy of Steel but this wasn't normal ice. It tore through his clothes to render muscle and tissue disabled. Shards of ice imbedded themselves between joints and burned whole areas of sensitive nerves. The lions rushed in for the kill. Superboy had just enough vigor to dodge the first strike aimed at his face but he couldn't sidestep the one that landed on his side. Superboy was thrown clear across the street again with the sound of his ribs breaking ringing in his ears. He tried to land on his good side but found himself on his back in excruciating pain.

Superboy lifted his head and tried to stand but was stopped by the sight of his own blood. It was everywhere. He left a trail in the ground from where he landed all the way to where he was laying now. His arms had gorges in them from when he blocked the majority of the ice. His shirt was barely hanging on and heavy. There was a massive gash on his lower abdomen and it was still bleeding. There were also several large pieces of ice still lodge in his left leg. He could hardly move it. His right leg fares only slightly better. His thigh was frozen and he had a fracture. The bone was sticking out of the skin. He took a deep breath to brace himself only to choke. Superboy turned on his side and spat up blood. His broken ribs pierced one of his lungs. The clone wheezed. He steadied himself using his arms he couldn't really comprehend how severely injured he actually was.

"Wont..lose…" he rasps. He couldn't call for help. He had left the comm back at the base. And he knew Superman wouldn't answer his call for help. He never will. "I can…save…myself…"

It hurt to breathe, to move. But Superboy tried to stand anyway. The agony that his body endured was beyond anything he had ever encountered. It was beyond the limits of what his mind was telling him he could handle. Superboy began to see dark stops in his vision but viciously fought them off. Yet, for all his strength Superboy could not stop his body from giving out. He collapsed.

He dreamed. There were golden castles and barren fields. There was an ice fortress and a tropical island. Superboy dreamed of pale skin and wings. There were greens and blues. He dreamed of a butterfly.

"Awaken…" a voice calls out, "…And take my hand…"

When Superboy opens his eyes, there is a blue butterfly sitting on his right hand. It flutters its tiny wings before dissolving, leaving behind a glittering blue light. That light condenses underneath his hand and takes shape. When the light disappears, there is no blue butterfly, but there is a gun. The young hero gives a surprised start. There is a gun in his hand. He isn't sure if what he is seeing is real or not. The gun looks like an ordinary pistol. It is entirely silver with a black and golden hand grip. There is no safety. It gleams unnaturally. The light that it was born from covers the gun in tiny and indiscernible runes. It spreads to his hand, his arm. He doesn't drop it or let it go because it feels soft and safe and warm.

Superboy forces himself to his knees, a hiss escaping his clenched lips. There was something there. His bloodied hand seized the gun in a vice grip. It was important. He needed it against the monsters. The questions he had, he knew he'd find the answers to if he used the gun. Superboy didn't know how he knew that.

"…Do not be afraid…"

That voice reverberated around him, inside his head, along the street. The monsters turned toward him again. They bellowed together, assured of victory. But Suprerboy was stubborn and afraid and determined and suffering. Superboy let his body go, let it move on its own. He pushed down the part of himself that cared about Superman or Canary or the team. He locked away the anger and the uncertainty. His arm lifted the gun and placed the barrel to his temple.

The metal is hot against his skin. It fights against the creeping cold that's set in. But it still causes a chill run through his frame. He starts to sweat and it irritates his wounds. Superboy's impossibly blue eyes dilate turning them black. The hand holding the gun trembles. The part of his mind that is truly conscious, knows this is wrong, and knows putting a gun to his head isn't normal. But in this moment, normal doesn't apply. Not dying is what matters. His hand becomes firm.

"…Persona…" Superboy pulls the trigger.

The shot that follows, cleaves metaphorically straight through his mind. His psyche shatters. An unseen force makes the before and the after disappear. What would have been is erased.

Thou art I…

Superboy is encircled by raw energy. It lashes out and forces the monsters away. Superboy's blown pupils glow an unearthly blue. It condenses and begins to take shape.

And I am Thou…

The remnants of his scattered soul come together. A torso forms…

From the sea of thy soul I cometh…

A pale face with shaggy blonde hair emerges from the dark. Immaculate red armor radiates a comforting light, covered by a sleeveless white robe with gold trimming and a golden cross on the chest. Pristine white wings illuminate the dark night and a massive, elegant white and gold sword gleams like a fiery torch.

I am Uriel, Angel of Penitence.

The archangel's voice thundered in the open. He raised his blade and sliced through the air. With a flap of his wings, the angel launched himself at the monsters. He hefted the severely heavy blade as if it weighted nothing and the sword struck true. With one swing, the first lion was hacked in two. With another, the second beast fell, crumbling into dark fragments before vanishing from sight. The jester opened its arms and bombarded the winged warrior with ice. Uriel effortlessly dodges most and parried the rest with his sword. The angel's moves were swift and graceful. Uriel raised his empty hand and an immense red flame was born.

"Uriel…" Superboy's harsh whisper managed to reach his persona.

The Archangel thrust his arm forward and unleashed an enormous fire. The jester was consumed in a sea of flames, its dying wail resounding so loud it hurt Superboy's ears. When there was nothing left except fading embers, Uriel turned to Superboy and lowered himself to Superboy's level. The persona towered over the clone. With a gentleness that belied his stern facial expression, Uriel picked up the clone, cradled him close to his chest and lifted off. Uriel carried Superboy off into the distance back to the one place, he knew the teen would receive the care he desperately needs.

Uriel Set

Mahamaon

Maragidyne

Vorpal Blade

Fire Amp

Tempest Slash

High Counter

Megidolaon

Null Ice

So this is chapter one and its an idea that's been bothering me for days...its here now and reviews are much appreciated.

Feedback is welcome too

For those of you who don't know...Shin Megami Tensei: Persona is a game where teenagers summon facets of their psyche, known as Personas, to combat evil entities of humanity known as Shadows. Some versions of the game have the teens summon using cards or like in Persona 3 a gun-like evoker.