Chapter 3: Shadows.
"Persona, Mercury!" As a robotic man sped through his enemies, before letting out a powerful green wind which knocked several shadows back. Touma dashed towards one of it and pulled out his katana, connecting two fast slashes on its face, destroying it.
"I got him!" Tsubasa's bow was ready, stopping one eagle-looking shadow from hitting Maki, who used her mace against it.
"Keep going, guys, you are nearly done" The voice of the Heimdall Persona, Jeri said to them.
"Let me end this", A pink-haired girl said, her white uniform and black skirt flowing as her skirt flowing on the wind, and her black haired Persona stood behind her, appearing from a blue fire that came from the girl, before forming a mirror and breaking, revealing her other self. She flipped and twirled her knives, commanding her persona.
"Sif, Garudyne!" A powerful gust of wind destroyed the last few shadows, finishing the fight. Touma looked around the Roman Coliseum, the dungeon of their absent friend and kohai, Shigeru Saeki.
"Nice hit, Hana-chan" Touma told her, patting her on top of the head, making her blush.
"Everyone did a great job, we have to keep that spirit" Touma said, and Tsubasa smirked, Maki nodded and Hana ran a hand through her hair. "While Koji, Shigeru and 'Helen' could not come today, they have all gotten stronger, and we must keep the shape from now on"
"Yes!" They were enveloped in a white light, before finding themselves on the entrance of the dungeon. Their scanner went up to them as Touma pulled out a mirror out of his pocket, which started glowing, before seemingly being absorbed into it.
They ended in a beautifully furnished room, with a book shelf, a 50 inches TV, a computer on the corner, a snack table, several movies on the corner, along with posters for classic movies. Several chairs were pushed to the corner, in order to give them some space to appear on the real world. Touma, Tsubasa and Maki put their weapons away, while Hana hid her knives on a different compartment, along with Maki. The shy Jeri just looked at all of them as they worked, before putting a chair on its place, sitting down, and started checking a few things on her phone.
"Anything good on Netmov, Tsubasa?" Touma asked, as the Magician took the control.
"X-Ronin, show of hands" Touma and Jeri raised their hands, while Maki just shrugged and Hana left to go for drinks.
"Gotta love this place" Maki commented as she picked up a book.
"Thank our dear Ojou-chan" Tsubasa laughed. It was true. When Hana joined the team, she got them their hideout, while her money could have been used to get better weapons and armor, not to mention supplies, she only uses that occasionally, in order to avoid her father asking too many questions and getting too involved, she just asked for a place to hang with her friends. As she felt wary of people only paying her attention because of her money, and feeling paranoid because of it, but Touma just laughed it off.
"Money has its perks, but you are cool".
Since then, she had been able to accept herself more, and became more confident, and an asset to the team. Touma wondered just when she learned how to fight with dual weapons, but he didn't really mind. She could defend herself and that's all that mattered, she was their friend, and in Touma's case, more.
Tsubasa and the Leader were helping Jeri with the furniture and Maki was trying to focus on the novel she had on hand. It was an added effort, but if they want to keep the whole thing secret, it's worth it.
Tsubasa decided to leave after a while, saying goodbye to everyone. Maki and Jeri left soon after, leaving Touma and Hana alone.
"So, you've got it" Touma asked, looking at her. He got closer, and she blushed, but kept her ground. She guided him to the computer.
"Yes, I do" She answered, pulling out a USB "Some are rather simple, but I am proud of the one of the shadow self"
"They are perfect!" Touma exclaimed, even if he didn't know much about art, he could tell that colors, shapes and shadows went together very well. "I can't believe you did this on just two days!"
"I had a clear idea, so I could put it on bits quickly, but managing to get it all to look good together was the challenge, too bad I didn't use pencil and paper"
"You are just incredible, anyway" Touma kissed her in the cheek, getting a small giggle out of her.
"What do you need this for, anyway?"
"A personal project, if everything seems to go to Hell again, I'll let someone know what to do and be ready for it"
"Do you think we will lose?" She asked, a bit disheartened.
"Of course not" Touma dismissed that idea a long time ago. Odin and Thor survived the battles, and he believes that they all can change fate. "But, we don't know what will happen after it, and some other group will be dragged into this"
"It sounds nice, but how will it reach them?"
"Do you remember Eleanor?" Hana winced, so yes, she remembered.
"I have no idea what she is, but I know she can do it, if I ask"
"How do you know her in the first place?"
"I don't understand it very well, but she is linked to those with my power, and can make it arrive"
"You really seem to have all the answers" Hana said, coyly.
"I learned a few things" He said laughing and getting her closed to him.
Touma spent a long time with her.
Now we are touching an important part of your journey, meeting the dark side of humanity, beings so bizarre that they look as if Lovecraft got his hands on a Jung psychology book. These are the Shadows.
Their origin is something confusing. As far as I know, they come from the minds of humanity, created from a fragment of the collective unconscious. Now, how little fragments of the human mind can take a physical shape; get elemental powers, and how a portal from the real world to their world is another issue, but that part is for you to find out. I know of it being possible, but the reason is something you need to find out yourself.
Now, to explain the nature of shadows, let's see a little quote.
"Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the Shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular."
Human mind is a complicated thing, no two ways about it. Scientifically speaking, we have troubles understanding the complicated process of thought, and everything that goes through our heads. And we can't control it either. There will always be things you don't like going on there, but most people are willing to deny it, and never face it, and let those feelings are never faced, and like a sickness, if it's never treated, it just get worse as time goes on, and, like a sickness causes symptoms, those feelings cause changes on a person's, making them more temperamental, hypocrital or plainly prone to do something… extreme (such as, you know, killing someone, running away or getting themselves on dangerous situations). Overall, even if they seem fairly normal, they can be quite messed up, so pay attention to even the smaller slips, you never know what's down that rabbit hole.
Now, onto the Shadows themselves, I can qualify them into three types, minor Shadows, People's Shadows and Boss Shadows (Note: I made those names up, so you can call them whatever you feel like).
First, he added a few pictures, made in the computer by Hana, and put on a picture of a tank, a couple of stick figures in formal clothes, looking like a couple, and what looked like a fusion between a giant robot and a moai.
The minor Shadows are just pieces of discarded thoughts from people, just a fickle part of someone's mind, a thought that came and went. About their sentience, I'd compare them to a wild animal, they are aware of their surroundings, and can fight in a group, but they can't talk and seem to rely on their instincts. As you can see, they can take quite… bizarre shapes, and they all are represented by one Arcana, which would let you know what kind of thoughts created them, but it is kind of vague (the list is quite large).
Now, every shadow has its own strengths and weaknesses, some may be obvious, but some will be surprising. Having a scanner will save you some shots and perhaps a hit from some reflections, and from making them recover from the damage you already made (this is something you must consider for all the types of shadows). And, even if one type of Shadow looks like a palette swap of other, better check first, because it may have different powers.
Overall, you will fight these ones quite a bit, so be ready for it and smack them good.
The youngest Kori added the second picture, one showing two halves of a schoolgirl, one side showed the girl with an innocent smile, on a classroom, while on the other side, the girl's eye was yellow and looked inhuman, all while sporting an evil smile, and the background was on fire.
Now, we go onto something more serious, the people's Shadows come directly from human beings. Rather than just being a thought, it is literally the whole hidden side from that person. All their rage, fear and sorrow takes shape and become a replica of the person. But there are several differences, their eyes become yellow or some other unnatural color, their faces take an evil, insane sneer or a rather evil expression (believe me, seeing that on a friend's face is awful, and deeply unsettling).
Touma stopped writing for a second. He had known Maki for a long time, and while what the Shadow said didn't really surprise him, it still was unpleasant, not to mention seeing it transform into an abomination of a girl in crutches. It happened the same with nearly every member of his team. Koji was the only one who could accept his Shadow without help, since, according to him, "being able to accept your flaws is part of what means to be a real man, as it is to outgrow them". Too bad Akatsuki and Kira chose that moment to attack them.
As it is really hard for someone to accept someone (who looks like your demented, evil twin) blurting everything you tried to keep the world from knowing, those who deal with their own shadows will try to deny it, and from what I've learned, they get more aggressive when you are close to the 'victim' (as in, within the same room), until they go to full denial, and the Shadow will most likely transform into some kind of giant abomination, symbolic of their main issues.
By that point, any effort to make them accept those issues will most likely fail, so you better get ready to fight. They are a lot stronger than minor Shadows, but the same rules apply, except it won't disappear when you win. After that, you have to talk to the owner of that Shadow to accept it, or else the Shadow will get up, transform and be ready to fight you again, even stronger than before, and you definitely don't want that. Just remember, a Shadow is the dark side of a person, what they hide and its real, but a person is much more than just their shadow, what matters is who they are and what they want to be. If they manage to accept it and have enough strength of heart, they will earn a Persona, and may join your team. (Note: The Shadow world tends to have a negative effect on a human's health, and may need a couple days of rest after you save them, and I have the feeling the damage you make to a shadow goes to the owner once it turns into a Persona, it's just a theory, but I might be overthinking things).
Touma looked back, and remembered how they beat Shigeru's Shadow. At the end of the fight, he used a strong Rampage, along with Hana's Garula attack to send him against the floor, putting him through the ten floors of his dungeon, which was heavily damaged during the fight. He looked pretty bad once they got him out (not that any of them, particularly Touma and Hana were in good condition afterwards). Touma's next image showed the girl's Shadow turning into… a demonic, beheaded sheep. Touma didn't question the quality of the image, but didn't quite grasp the concept. He shrugged, it gets the point across.
Last advice, if a Shadow has scanning abilities, be ready for an uphill battle, since they know everything you can do, and even changing Personas won't work on that case.
And, I've been told that some enemies are able to create Shadow Clones (please, save the jokes about knucklehead ninja series), essentially, they do the same as a person's Shadow, but they don't want to be accepted, they just want to hurt you as badly as possible, and they know just what to say to do so. Taking that into account, just drop precaution aside and beat them into oblivion.
Now, finally there are the Boss Shadows. Minor Shadows, which represent stray thought, these are created by the merge of several shadows of a sentiment. Once this occurs, a bigger, more dangerous shadow appears; their powers are quite notable, and it can give you quite the run for your money, and they tend to gather minor Shadows around it, like people's shadows do.
Now, I know you will not believe this, but there are shadows above boss shadows, powerful enough to change the real world, it tends to be for the worse, I call them God Shadows. Worst case scenario, it can merge the Human and Shadow worlds together, turning everyone into shadows. We both know that you don't want that fate, so smite them, and smite them hard.
Touma put on a last picture. One chained figure with a bandaged face, two long barreled revolvers. Touma shuddered, as he remembered that thing very well.
One last advice, there is one Shadow you must beware. It's called the Reaper, one very powerful enemy you will find at some point. It may be found anywhere, whether dungeon or treasure chest. It is a beast of terrible power, with multiple elemental attacks, amazing physical strength and tricks to stop any barrier you use. If you feel death, run away, if you meet it too soon you are dead meat, and that's the easy way. But if you want to fight it, do it when you have a team and six to seven months of fighting experience. It gives nice rewards if you win, but beware.
Well, there it is. A chapter that looks like a bit of a psychology test more than anything. I am not too sure of the first part, never wrote romance (or close to it). Now, before you ask, yes, they are trying to keep the whole thing in secret, especially from Mr. Morisaki. We all know what happened the last time a rich guy got his hands on anything involving Shadows and Persona (*coughPersona3cough), so it's for the best. Questions, praise and critique go to reviews, no flames, please. Bye.