Episode 103

[Invocation]

Friend of the Devil

Five students sat around the slender glass table in the lounge as Professor Meredith Duncan raised a gun-like object to her head. Christopher Rivers, Brady Martin, and Rae Regan sat with their own evokers across from twins Nick and Alice Walker who looked around at the trashed dorm lounge in awe.

The professor pulled the trigger, "Help me, Althaea!"

A beautiful woman in a flowing white silk gown appeared out of the dark blue mist surrounding the professor. She had long curly blond locks and held a fireplace brand in her hand, which was slowly being consumed by a magical fire held in her hand. With the other hand, Althaea emitted a bright multi-colored light, which repaired the damage to any furniture or walls in the immediate area. Once finished, Althaea disappeared once more into Professor Duncan's mind.

"This," Duncan sighed as she sat down, "is a persona. It's a manifestation of a person's true self that takes the form of mythological beings. I'm trying to find out why they are all from mythology myself."

Brady raised his evoker, showing the twins. "This is an evoker. Don't worry, it's not a real gun. It helps us summon our personas."

Nick shook his head in awe, "How does that work?"

"It provides enough mental trauma to force our true selves to appear," Rae chimed in, "Without truly facing oneself, the persona's true abilities cannot be attained and they cannot be summoned at will without an evoker."

"The monsters that attacked you are called Shadows." Duncan nodded, "They're much like personas, but they seem to be controlled by some other force. They gather and perhaps spawn from places we call 'Shadow Hotspots' that only appear during the Dark Hour."

Alice blinked, "What's the Dark Hour? Why is everything so strange here?"

"The Dark Hour takes place everywhere, Alice. It's not just in Lakeridge." Christopher shifted uncomfortably, "Normal people don't see it though. They appear as just coffins. It's an extra hour between midnight and one a.m. where the Shadows come out and get us. Every so often, though, a Shadow will appear outside of the Dark Hour for some reason, like today. We're still trying to find out how and why it managed to find us."

Brady quietly gulped and hid his car keys deep within his pocket.

"The problem with these hotspots though," Rae sighed, "Is that there are so many of them and the Shadows keep spawning from them. Each hotspot has dozens of floors and it seems like the Shadows are trying to travel down the floors. If they reach the ground floor, they're free to come out into our world, which can wreak havoc as you just saw."

"The thing is, we weren't aware that Shadows can be in our world when it's not the Dark Hour." Duncan stood up, walking to a locked cabinet against the wall. "That Hablerie must have escaped Hōrai before the hour ended, hence why it was stuck in our world."

The professor finished unlocking the cabinet, pulling out a drawer with rows and rows of neatly lined briefcases, all equally shiny and enigmatic. She pulled two and closed the shelf again, locking them.

"We're not going to force you, but we could use your help in fighting the Shadows. I can sense that you have the potential, as you've already experienced the Dark Hour without being harmed, and the Hablerie was probably drawn towards the scent of a normal human. You won't be safe anymore unless you can control your Personas." Duncan placed the two briefcases gently on the glass table.

Alice threw a look at Nick who shrugged. "What's inside?"

"An evoker." Brady nodded, "You're going to need them if you want to survive now that you know the truth. Bring it with you everywhere. Even to school."

Alice picked up the briefcase nearest to her and stared at her reflection in the shiny metallic coating. Tentatively, she unlatched the edges and opened the lid. Nick looked on from the side, his briefcase untouched. Inside was a petite but daunting gray gun-like object with the word "Evoker" inscribed on the side. Hands shaking, she picked up her evoker and slowly pulled it up to her head.

What if it was all a trick? What if the evoker was a real gun? Wouldn't she die if she shot herself in the head with a real gun? What would her family say?

The evoker was mercilessly ripped away from its nest on her right temple by her hand as she placed it back in the suitcase and closed the lid.

"I'm… I'm sorry, I can't do it."

"It's okay." Christopher shook his head knowingly, "It takes time. It happens to all of us."

Nick hadn't even opened his yet, but he picked up his briefcase and stood up.

Seeing their less than stellar reaction, Rae took charge, "Maybe we should just wait for another day. Just relax for now. The first day of school is tomorrow so focus on your studies. We'll go to Hōrai sometime soon and bring you two along so you can see what we're up against."

Nick nodded and headed up the stairs.

The first day of school wasn't entirely uneventful, but it passed without a second thought in Nick Walker's mind. Throughout the day, all he could think about was the ridiculous situation he was in. It had to be a joke, or maybe a prank. Either way, he just couldn't accept that something this strange actually existed in the world.

Preoccupied by his thoughts, he accidentally ran into a red-headed girl in the hallway. She dropped a pile of books she was holding and quickly bent over to reorganize the new mess. Nick got down to help her, "I'm so sorry about that. There's just a lot on my mind."

"Oh, it's no problem at all. Thanks for helping me," replied the girl, "I'm Rose, by the way. You look new."

Nick shrugged, picking up two small notebooks and handing it to Rose, "I'm Nick. I just moved here with my sister."

"Oh, well I hope you like it here."

Nick nodded, ready to move on.

"Hey," interrupted Rose, "If you're not doing anything for lunch, you could stop on by the roof and hang out with my friends and me."

Nick chuckled awkwardly, "Sure, I guess. I'll see."

Rose smiled and waved as she turned away, "Later!"

As he swiftly climbed down the stairs to his next class, Nick thought about her offer and considered bringing his sister along with them. It sounded like a good idea; after all, it'd be nice to get to know more people than the strange gun-toting group in his dorm. Then again, if he was going to be stuck with these people and there was a legitimate form of danger, which the battle the day before proved, perhaps he should get to know his dorm mates better.

While her brother was busy rushing to class after his incident, Alice Walker was introducing herself to a trio of girls in her literature class. The teacher had decided to start off the year with a 'getting-to-know-you' game. Alice hated those games; she didn't think anyone actually liked them.

The girl in the center with the wavy brown hair shook her hand, "I'm Vanessa. Nice to meet you, Alice."

There were two girls flanking Vanessa. The one on her left was a gorgeous Latina girl with sleek black hair tied up into a high ponytail, while the one on her right seemed much more reserved and shy, staring down at the ground with a matching ponytail- this time blond. Like the rest of the students at Wolfridge University, were wearing matching uniforms which included a neat white button-up top with a dark blue bow for girls or a slim tie for boys, and either a black skirt or slacks.

"I'm Santana," began the Latina girl, "and this is Nora."

Alice shook each of the girls' hands, with the exception of Nora would simply looked up and stared at her, and glanced at the clock again. The girls were nice and all, but she couldn't help getting distracted by her current situation. She had recently held a gun to her head, and understandably could not get over it.

Finally, the bell rang and class was let out for lunch. Alice checked her schedule again and threw her belongings into her backpack before swinging it over her shoulder and hurrying out, making sure to wave to the three girls on the way. Only seconds after she had stepped into the hallway, she received a text message from her brother:

'Brady told me that we should meet with them back at the dorm for lunch. He's cooking.'

Brady was a nice guy, but she couldn't help shaking the disturbing feeling that came after seeing him use his evoker. Sure, it wasn't a real gun, but there was still something definitely traumatic about watching a college student pull the trigger on a gun-like object to their skull. Regardless, Alice headed back to the dorm as quickly as possible.

By the time she reached the dorm, the rest of the dorm, barring Duncan, were seated at the dining room table, eating the skillets that Brady had cooked up. Alice faked a smile and put her bag down before finding a chair and grabbing a plate.

"How was the first day of school?" Rae smiled warmly.

"Fine," Alice replied. Her brother stayed silent.

"We should cut to the chase," Christopher hurried, "We called you here… because we're planning on going to Hōrai tonight."

"What's that?" Alice looked around the table.

"It's… it's one of the shadow hot spots we talked about," Rae added, "We think you need to see what we're up against before you make a decision."

"Please. We're just asking you to give it a chance," Chris hastily confirmed, "Are you in?"

Nick was silent, but Alice perked up and looked each of the students in the eye, "… I'm in."