Chapter XI - Winter Comes
Merliad cried out as a sudden, painful boom shot through their skull, the ache coinciding with a deep, echoing voice that rang out in their mind. The magic runes they'd conjured to attack Shadow Clerebold flickered and fizzled out as they lost their concentration, their hands instead snapping to the sides of their head as they collapsed to their knees. With pressure building in their head as though it would split in two at any moment, Merliad groaned and panted as they suffered on the floor, their normally green eyes turning bright yellow after being squeezed shut for a moment.
"The root of strife runs deep in these lands, buried deep and stained bright crimson."
"Pains carved by word and sword, etched on its face by those lost to time..."
"They lead all men down the same path. The path to oblivion; to endless night."
As Merliad cried out and writhed, Wymare and Yselt looked on at the caster's struggling. Though it was difficult to tell what was happening from their angle, Yselt picked up on the similarities the current scene shared with her own breakdown, staring ahead wide-eyed as she realized what that could mean.
"No way..." she muttered, still bound by the warrioress Shadow's paralysis. "Is this...?"
"Yeah," Wymare nodded, his teeth gritted. "I think it is."
"Once, you turned back from that path. But the shade that beckons cannot merely be fled."
"What shall be left when all is consumed? Where shall be your safe haven?"
With their fingers digging into the sides of their head and their jaw clenched, Merliad could only stare at the floor below them as the agony continued, their sweat and saliva dripping to the floor. Desperate for any kind of distraction from the pain in their head, they balled their right hand into a fist and bashed it into the floor repeatedly, tearing the skin from their knuckles after repeated blows and staining the mess hall with their blood.
Merliad's barbaric act was regarded by the two Persona-users behind them with worry and with disdain by Shadow Clerebold, but they were far too consumed by their pain to consider the people around them. Their chest heaving up and down as they laboriously drew breath, they stared at their now-bloodied hand, streaks of red trickling down their palm through the gaps between their fingers. Their wild look was barely visible in the reflection cast on the blood, and the voice in their head continued as Merliad continued to stare at their injured hand.
"Heed my invitation, young one... for you, subsumed by darkness, must cast your own shadow."
The image visible in Merliad's blood shifted as the red fluid continued to flow from their knuckles, a sinister figure taking the place of Merliad's reflection and staring back at them to their shock. Merliad could see nothing of their features save the yellow gleam that took the place of their eyes, and as they gazed upon the figure they began to feel a new stabbing pain in their body, this one separated from their aching head and torn-up hand. They tilted their head down to look toward the place on their body where the sensation was growing, and the look on their face shifted from wide-eyed agony to bewildered fright.
Drilling through their caster's robes and the dress below them, a hole was beginning to appear in the center of Merliad's chest, piercing through their sternum and the vital organs beneath. Despite how fatal such a wound would have been in any other circumstance, Merliad simply felt as though their upper torso was on fire, the feeling accentuated by trailing blue flames that began to spark from the gap in their chest.
"I am thou. Thou art I."
"Our contract, sworn in halves, is light and dark... cold and warmth."
"Accept all sides of your wayward self... and unleash the potential within!"
The flames bursting forth from Merliad's chest wound came together to take the shape of a majestic silver staff, its slender shaft running through Merliad's midsection with a sharply-pointed tip at the bottom sticking out through their back. Adorned at the top of the staff was a pure white crystal sphere, with a ribbon of silver from the staff's shaft swirling around it to keep it in place. Merliad didn't hesitate to grab the staff with their left hand and begin pulling at the weapon, crying out as their upper body painfully jerked forward with every tug. Before long, they added their bloodied right hand to the effort, a red handprint smudging onto the staff beneath their palm.
With a growl that evolved into a determined yell, Merliad finally ripped the staff free from their chest, holding it aloft with both hands as blue fire exploded from the ground around them. The flames rose to form a blazing column, illuminating the otherwise dimly lit mess hall like the morning sun breaking over the horizon. Blood from their chest and hand swirled in the air as they were carried by the spiraling inferno, and once the flames died down the trails of red began to fall to the floor.
By the time they landed, however, the blood had gone from a viscous fluid to a shimmering solid, frozen mid-fall as the temperature in the air surrounding Merliad began to rapidly plummet. The frozen blood shattered against the floor, coinciding with the formation of a white haze that began to form in the area as Merliad used their new staff to prop themselves up and get back on their feet. Their breathing was heavy and tired, and as they continued to collect themselves after undergoing their awakening, something else began to breathe in sync with them.
Lumbering behind Merliad was a lean figure dressed in a winter parka and moccasin boots, the fur-lined hood of its coat obscuring its face save for two gleaming eyes that pierced through the veil of shadow. Affixed to its parka were epaulets on its shoulders and badges of honor on its breast, its accessorized clothing rising and falling with each heavy breath it took. Its breath was visible in the icy mist, and the reason for its labored breathing was plain to see: affixed through its stomach by a wheel inlaid with gold was a colossal glass sphere containing several interconnected planets, blowing around inside the sphere with a contained snowstorm. The weight of its oversized snowglobe could be seen through the figure's slouched posture, and it gripped a steel-hook polearm with a crude, barbaric edge to help keep its balance.
"Hm... Curious," Merliad pondered, their caster's robes billowing in the flames as the figure behind them turned its unblinking gaze toward Shadow Clerebold. "This power is the weaponization of self, that which slumbers within all things... Where was it back in Eaucrest, I wonder?"
"Tch. So much traitorous filth, piling up at my feet..." Shadow Clerebold scowled from across the mess hall and snapped his fingers, the warrioress Shadow following his command and standing ready between the warden and the newly awakened caster. "Diplomacy is wasted on war-thirsty cravens like you. I'll do the king a personal favor and snuff you out, here and now. You'll be an example to the cave-dwellers back in your homeland of what Brilanian justice looks like!"
Despite the venom in Shadow Clerebold's hateful diatribe, Merliad smirked in the face of the warden's words, an amused chuckle slipping through their otherwise stoic demeanor. "Well, then... I wish you the very best of luck, supervisor."
Merliad tapped the bottom of his staff on the floor twice, prodding the slouched being behind them to shift its weight and extend a gloved hand in the direction of the tall warrioress defending Shadow Clerebold. The same frigid mist that surrounded the caster and their newfound ally formed around the Shadow's shield, and the low temperatures created by that veil fostered the formation of ice chunks that formed on the shield's surface and spread across it. In seconds, the shield was encased in a mass of ice, prompting the Shadow to drop it in a panic as the freezing metal nipped at their hand.
As the shield fell from its user's grasp, Merliad's Persona shifted its outstretched hand to close it in a fist. As a result, the ice around the shield began cracking, and within moments it shattered completely, fragmenting the shield along with it as metal scraps and ice shards clattered to the floor at the feet of the Shadow. Wymare and Yselt observed this with wide-eyed stares from behind Merliad, whereas Shadow Clerebold's grimace only deepened as he took a few steps back, widening the distance between him and the caster.
Enraged by the destruction of its shield, the warrioress Shadow bellowed with fury, holding its blade with both hands and stepping forward to bring the weapon down on Merliad's head from above. Unfazed, Merliad calmly looked up to observe the incoming slash, raising their staff to point at the Shadow, a determined smile on their face as they steeled themselves for battle.
"Take them... ESTRAVEN!"
Merliad's Persona vanished with a flicker of movement as the mist surrounding the caster grew thicker and more widespread, forming a chilly smokescreen that obscured the Shadow's line of sight. The warrioress looked around furiously, trying in vain to find an enemy in the fog to set its sword upon. Before it could come upon any such enemy, however, the enemy came to it as Estraven appeared behind it and slashed at its back with its fishing hook.
The Shadow screeched with rage and whirled around with its blade outstretched, but where Estraven had been a second ago there was now only mist. The encumbered Persona appeared from the fog behind the Shadow once more, this time flying over its shoulder and digging the hook of its polearm into the Shadow's armor. The metal plating ripped and fractured as Estraven's weapon shredded through it, only further enraging the Shadow as it pursued Merliad's evasive Persona around the room.
With the enemy's attention diverted, Merliad allowed the mist coating their immediate surroundings to lighten, turning their attention to the still-immobile Wymare and Yselt. "Remain still," they instructed, pointing the head of their new staff at Wymare and concentrating their focus into it. The globe wrapped in the staff's iron ribbon shone with white light, and in the blink of an eye, the paralysis inflicted on Wymare was wiped away, allowing him to move freely again. As Wymare got to his feet and stretched his body to subdue the stiffness and soreness plaguing him, Merliad turned their staff on Yselt and cured her as well, helping her up once she was ready.
"Are you two alright?" Merliad asked, looking between the two to assess their statuses. They did not seem to be terribly injured, but a good deal of exhaustion was written across their faces, a fact that Merliad would have to take into account for the coming brawl.
"We'll manage," answered Wymare. "I trust you're, ah... none the worse for wear yourself?"
The hesitancy in Wymare's voice combined with a squeamish look from Yselt prompted Merliad to appear confused and turn their gaze down to their chest, taking notice of the gaping hole that ran straight through their upper torso. "Oh; I see. Yes, you don't have to worry. In fact... it's been some time since I last felt this way," they replied, another smile finding its way onto their lips.
"L-Let's save the chatting for later," Yselt said, tearing her eyes away from Merliad's wound as she readied her flail. "There's still a fight to be won, after all."
"Of course," Merliad nodded. They then turned to address Wymare, saying, "I hope you'll enlighten me as to the full depth of what's happening here. For now, though, my strength is yours."
Wymare took a moment to consider his answer, locking eyes with Merliad as the caster spoke to him. He could tell that Merliad was still labored with guilt over going behind his back under pressure from Clerebold, but that sentiment was far outshone by the liveliness in their eyes, a fresh determination brought forth by their Persona awakening. Sensing Merliad's momentary trust in him, Wymare nodded and returned their smile before turning his attention back to the warrioress Shadow.
Estraven had managed to stall the Shadow's approach while its user helped the other Persona-users back to their feet, keeping its enemy on the back foot by sneaking attacks through its cloud of icy fog. Now that they were ready for an organized attack, the Persona disengaged from the fight and returned to Merliad, coinciding with Wymare and Yselt summoning their Personas as well. The warrioress Shadow waved its sword and free arm around to clear Estraven's mist, refocusing its infuriated gaze on the three intruders and their ethereal other selves as it unleashed a demonic roar and sprinted forward.
"Gawain, Cleave!" Wymare commanded, his Persona rising into the air to match the Shadow's sword stroke with one of its own. He then looked to his comrades and said, "We'll need to disarm it before we can go for a killing blow. Merliad, have Estraven back up Gawain and wear it down from afar with your casting. Yselt, stay to the side for now and provide healing when we need it. When the time comes, I'm counting on you and Nikanj to get that sword away from it."
"Alright. Good luck, you two," Yselt answered. She turned away and began running to her designated position on the side of the mess hall, Nikanj following behind her.
"Leave the casting to me," Merliad affirmed, stepping back and extending their free hand in the direction of the Shadow. Upon their command, Estraven flew in with its fishhook at the ready, joining Gawain in battling the warrioress up close. Merliad then wrapped both hands around their silver staff as Wymare charged ahead with his axe, magical power rippling through the air around them as they focused their casting knowledge into the weapon. Their Persona weapon became a conduit for their power, shining runes forming around the head of the rod and expelling a volley of fireballs that soared through the air in an arc.
Gawain and Estraven rolled off to the side as Merliad's fire magic flew in, pelting the Shadow across its upper body. As it screeched and flailed its arms around to shake off the flames left on its armor and skin, Gawain propelled itself forward with a burst of wind with one leg outstretched, kicking the Shadow in the cheek before jumping off and flying back. The Shadow retaliated by swinging its free hand up to swat the armored Persona like an insect, but Estraven moved to intercept by digging the hook of its polearm into the Shadow's wrist, pinning its arm to the wall.
With the Shadow exposed, Wymare called Gawain down to his side and jumped into the air with a burst of wind, cutting into the Shadow's chest with a rising slash from his axe. He then readied himself to block a stroke from the Shadow's sword hand, but the attack was more than he'd been expecting to match. As the Shadow's sword drew closer, he saw the metal of the blade begin to glow orange as heat coursed through it, and by the time its edge met the head of his axe the blade was completely engulfed in red-hot flames. While Wymare was able to block the sword swing, he could do little to shield himself from the cascading fire that blazed past him.
As Wymare fell back to the ground, forced to relent lest he get burned, the flames of the Shadow's sword flew further past where he had been and grazed Estraven's body, licking the fur of its parka as they splashed against the wall. Estraven trembled as its arms were singed and Merliad cried out from further away, reacting poorly to the superheated blaze that contrasted their ice-attuned Persona. In that moment of vulnerability, the Shadow grabbed Estraven's polearm with the hand that the weapon was embedded within and swung the Persona hard, slamming it against one of the mess hall's support pillars.
Estraven fell to the floor, the hook of its weapon sliding out of the Shadow's wrist. Merliad was doubled over by the pain they shared with their Persona, leaving it without direction as the warrioress raised its sword with both hands, poised to drive the tip of the blazing weapon through Estraven and into the ground. Seeing this, Wymare moved to assist, but neither he nor Gawain could move fast enough to reach the downed Estraven before the Shadow drove its weapon down.
A flash of movement struck the side of the Shadow's sword before Estraven could be skewered and incinerated, catching the Shadow, Wymare, and Merliad by surprise. From across the room, Yselt was watching the proceedings with a careful eye, having used Nikanj's long, thick legs to bash the flaming sword to the side. With the attack thwarted, Yselt now turned her focus to Merliad, extending a hand in their direction and casting Dia. Nikanj turned its focus on the caster as well as it used its power to soothe their pain, and Merliad snapped back to attention once the healing was complete.
"Estraven, Bufu!" Merliad shouted out. From the ground at the Shadow's feet, Estraven recovered from being downed and exhaled a long, cold breath, blowing out another cold fog that clouded the Shadow's right leg. Small ice fragments formed on the Shadow's leg within the mist before they shattered upon Estraven's command, flash-freezing the skin beneath and inflicting icy damage to the limb. The Shadow screeched and moved their flaming weapon close to their leg to defrost it, prompting Estraven to leap away and fly back to Merliad's side. Wymare was quick to join them, a look of concern on his face as he regarded the caster's condition.
"Are you okay, Merliad?" Wymare asked. "That was close."
"Too close for my liking," Merliad replied, brushing off their caster's robes with their free hand before continuing, "But I'm fine. In fact, I believe I've come up with an idea."
"Well, don't make me beg, then! What's your plan?"
"This creature seems to have a strong aversion to the cold and ice. Look at how it's nursing its leg rather than its myriad other injuries, and remember how it cast aside its shield as my ice overtook it. If we take advantage of its fear and overwhelm it with ice attacks, we should be able to give Yselt an opening to disarm it."
Wymare looked to the Shadow as Merliad explained their idea. Just as they were saying, the Shadow seemed to be obsessing over the melting frost on its leg, disregarding the gashes across its chest and arms left by their other attacks. If ice was its weakness, then Merliad's suggestion seemed to make the most sense as the optimal way to bring the fight to a close. Realizing this, Wymare turned back to Merliad and nodded with approval.
"Right then. I'll open it up for you."
With their plan set, Wymare once again made for the Shadow, axe in hand as he sprinted past the scattered tables and chairs of the cafeteria. Seeing the Persona-user's approach, the warrioress threw a punch that Wymare jumped away from, its fist digging into the metal floor upon impact. Now to the side of the Shadow's outstretched arm, Wymare planted himself in place and raised his axe, channeling the Wild Card's power as Gawain appeared at the ready in front of him.
"PERSONA CHANGE: KOROPOKGURU!"
The orb on Wymare's axe flashed to life with a blue light appearing within it, empowering Gawain with a new Persona's strength. The armored Persona unleashed a mighty slash that ran up the Shadow's forearm from its wrist to its elbow, its sword opening up a lengthy cut in the flesh. Rather than allow the Shadow to retract its arm with that, however, Gawain followed up its attack by placing a hand to the cut and channeling its new ability. The open wound soon became filled with ice that trailed out from Gawain's palm, and as it felt the cold bite of the ice eat away at its arm, the Shadow recoiled and roared again, its voice now sounding more frightened than enraged.
With the enemy now flailing its arm about in a desperate effort to dislodge Gawain's ice, Merliad moved to seize the moment, positioning themselves behind Estraven as their Persona spewed forth another chilly mist from beneath its hood. They then aimed their staff forward and channeled wind magic into it, white runes forming at the tip of the weapon as they poured every ounce of their strength into the spell. Merliad stared at the Shadow as it dragged its burning sword across its ice-filled wound, leveling their gaze as they prepared to unleash.
"You've done enough, monster. Now, be still... and FREEZE!"
Merliad's runes exploded into a raging current that carried Estraven's frosty breath across the room at high speed, forming a makeshift blizzard that howled past the struggling Shadow and battered it with subzero temperatures. The warrioress gritted its teeth and attempted to push through the freezing winds and attack Merliad, but for every step it took its body shivered more and more under the cold, and before long there was ice forming along every part of its body, slowing its movements to a crawl and causing the flames of its sword to peter out.
"Now, Yselt!" Merliad shouted to her from across the room, seeing that the Shadow's strength was being sapped away by their ice storm.
"Got it!" Yselt replied, running ahead and spinning her flail in preparation for her attack. Pushing through the cold as she approached the Shadow, she jumped up and slammed the head of her flail into the fingers of its sword hand. The sickening crunch of the Shadow's hand being broken was swept away by the frigid winds, and its grip on its weapon finally gave out, the sword's hilt slipping away as the weapon fell to the floor. Faster than the Shadow could move to reclaim its dropped sword, Nikanj reached out and swept it away, snapping it in half like a twig as the cold winds rendered the metal brittle.
With her part done, Yselt retreated to the safety of her Persona, leaving the Shadow to drop to its knees as it shivered and growled, too drained to do anything but submit to the cold. Seeing this, Merliad and their Persona relented, the cold winds ceasing to open the way for the finishing blow.
"Wymare, it's all yours!" Merliad called out, their voice hoarse and tired. "Put an end to this!"
Wymare needed no further instruction, wasting little time in running up to the kneeling Shadow and jumping into the air with his axe poised to strike. Using a well-timed Garu from Gawain to amplify the power of his swing, he let out a shout of exertion and let loose, his weapon striking true with one broad stroke.
The warrioress Shadow's head was parted from its neck as the edge of Wymare's weapon sliced through its frostbitten flesh. Spewing thick, black miasma from both ends of the wound, its head crashed to the ground as its motionless body slumped forward and onto the floor, the life and fight departing from its corpse in an instant. Wymare landed on the floor next to its headless body and sighed, regarding their fallen enemy's remains with relief as the tension in the air faded.
As Yselt and Merliad rushed over to him, the Shadow's decapitated head rotted and crumbled away, revealing a white orb that rolled toward Wymare before being drawn into the head of his axe. Wymare sensed the Shadow's form becoming a Persona inside of his mind, but he didn't have long to ponder the occurrence before the three Persona-users noticed that the rest of the Shadow corpse had yet to fade away as its head just had. Instead, they watched as the headless body started twitching and bulging from the inside as though something inside was attempting to burst forth.
Wymare, Yselt, and Merliad all watched as the remains of their giant enemy floated into the air, limbs dangling as the spasming intensified further. As the Shadow's corpse shook and contorted in midair, its flesh began to split in various places, bright light spewing forth from the cracks and forcing the Persona-users to shield their eyes. The cracks grew in number as the corpse shivered and flailed until finally, as the light streaming from the remains grew almost blinding, what was left of the Shadow exploded in a final burst of light, obscuring everyone's vision for a moment before the room returned to normal.
When the three opened their eyes, they were greeted by an ethereal sight that left all of them speechless. The prison mess hall was now filled with a thin, nearly translucent fog, with the event from Clerebold's past that Wymare and Yselt had witnessed captured as repeating images within the haze. They turned in place to look around at the room full of fog, and the images visible within changed as their perspectives changed, shifting from the ordinary Claudas Academy lunchroom to Clerebold being taken away by Miss Arlene.
"What in the world...?" Merliad wondered aloud. "That giant just... erupted with images cast in fog? What manner of magic is this?"
"It's not magic, but then again, I'm not sure what it means myself," Wymare replied. "We saw these events happen in front of us... then they became that Shadow, and now they're like this."
"Um... g-guys?" Yselt said, her attention no longer on the mist. "Don't look now, but-"
Before Yselt could finish, the sound of a slow, insincere clapping caught Wymare and Merliad's attention. They saw the visage of Shadow Clerebold approaching through the fog, revealing him to be the source of the clapping as he drew closer. He seemed to be applauding their efforts, but the dour look on his face suggested that his praise was anything but sincere, driving the three Persona-users to ready their arms again and stare him down.
"What's the matter?" Wymare asked, putting up a tough front to mask his exhaustion. "Has not enough blood been shed to satisfy a dastard like yourself?"
"Don't squander the air you breathe on lowly insults. I've been called worse things by better people," retorted Shadow Clerebold, a solemn rage barely contained behind his scowl. "You've defeated another prisoner and tarnished my brand as warden once again. Would you like a trophy for your efforts? A feast, perhaps?"
"What are you playing at, supervisor?" Merliad demanded. "You must think us a pack of fools to believe we'd accept anything from you."
"And yet it would be the only prize within your grasp," retorted the warden, crossing an arm over his chest and stroking his chin with the other. "Even the lowest animal in the wild has a purpose behind its daily endeavors: ensuring its own survival. So I ask you this: what is the purpose of your rebellious actions? What do you stand to gain from them? A sense of accomplishment? A warm inclination of self-righteousness to accompany you as you slip into bed at night? No; your efforts are utterly meaningless. They amount to little more than prey struggling betwixt the fangs of its predator."
"If you were half as smart as you think yourself to be, our reasons would be obvious," Yselt challenged. "You abuse the laborers entrusted to you and blackmail innocent people to get your way. Your obsession with regaining our family's status leaves you deaf to your conscience. Someone has to put a stop to you, brother, and that's what we're going to do!"
Upon Yselt's declaration of their intentions, Shadow Clerebold was briefly silent before his lips curled up in a bemused smirk. His smile soon gave way to a low chuckle, and before long he was doubled over with hysterical laughter, leaving the three Persona-users to share confused glances amongst each other. After a minute of ceaseless cackling from the otherworldly warden, he straightened his posture and looked down the three intruders again, shaking his head with a smile.
"Ohh... Ahh, but if that's not the funniest joke I've heard in years," said Shadow Clerebold, recovering from his laughing fit. "You REALLY think that the three of you alone have the means to STOP me? The Scadarah labor unit is integral to the work distribution of Rìo Ghaile! Without me at the helm to organize it, the important work that the citizenry can't be bothered to do would go undone, and the royal family's largest source of unpaid labor would be as good as a legless steed! King Perceval doesn't give a rat's arse how trash like you are treated so long as you do the work you're given. The same goes for everyone else in this world! If the suffering of the downtrodden is out of sight, then the masses can live their lives pretending it doesn't exist, smiling merrily all the while."
"Then we'll wake them up to that suffering!" Wymare countered. "No decent human would see the way you run the labor unit and consider it just. You're a madman riding the high of his own power, but that sway only goes as far as the laborers beneath you."
"You just don't understand, do you? Sure, the common man might disagree with my methods, but the labor unit cannot be retooled or disposed of without upsetting how our society operates. The same is true for my position. And once the masses realize the disruption that would come with such change, they'll look the other way faster than you could imagine, resigning themselves to the inhumanity of their world so long as that means they don't have to change anything about themselves. To them, the evils of the familiar will always be more appealing than the turbulence of the unknown."
With his confidence in his impunity made clear, Shadow Clerebold folded his arms across his chest and snapped his fingers. A ring of Shadows formed at his command and encircled himself, Wymare, Yselt, and Merliad, forcing the three Persona-users to put their backs to each other and face the chittering, ravenous horde. They held their weapons out to keep the Shadows at bay for the moment, but each of them knew that they would be in for an uphill battle given how tired they were from felling the last enemy.
"In case it hasn't penetrated your delusions of victory, allow me to make my point clear," Shadow Clerebold continued with a smug grin. "To challenge your warden is to challenge the caste system itself. If you are foolhardy enough to go through with such a course of action, then I shall await you in the depths of this prison. But if by some miracle my rationale has resonated with you, then you are free to lay down your arms and submit."
"Like we'd do that after coming this far!" Yselt retorted. "You and your Shadows have barely been able to handle two of us. What makes you think you stand a chance against three?"
At this, Shadow Clerebold's cocky look only intensified. "Hm. Three, you say? Perhaps you should take better stock of your allies' readiness before bluffing, dear sister."
The meaning of his retort was lost on Yselt for a moment. Then she heard Merliad mumble wearily next to her, and by the time she and Wymare turned to look at them, they had fallen to the floor in a heap, their staff landing next to them as it slid from their grasp.
"Merliad!" Yselt gasped, crouching down to attend to the fallen caster. Wymare did the same, sliding an arm under theirs to keep them from laying flat. Merliad's eyes were half-closed and tired, and they seemed barely able to remain conscious as they looked up at Wymare and Yselt.
"I'm... sorry..." Merliad mumbled. "I'm so tired... My body won't move..."
Wymare growled with aggravation. Of course the fatigue induced by a Persona awakening would have come down on Merliad sooner or later now that the blood-pumping adrenaline of battle had faded. Why would it have been any different from their own awakenings? He had failed to remember that in the face of the new curiosities that had greeted them upon venturing into the prison, and now that failure was coming back to bite all of them as the Shadows looked ready to pounce.
Shadow Clerebold allowed himself a malicious chuckle as he watched Wymare and Yselt struggle to help Merliad up, enjoying their panic before turning away from them. "Your insubordination has earned you only one thing," he commented. "I bequeath unto you all... a slow, painful death." He then walked ahead and left, disappearing behind the crowd of Shadows as they parted to make way for their warden.
Wymare looked around at the Shadows that were beginning to close in on them. They didn't seem especially powerful, but their sheer numbers would make taking them on a drawn-out affair, and with Merliad defenseless he was unsure how well he and Yselt would be able to multitask between fighting off the enemy and protecting their downed ally. Not only that, but the only way out that Wymare could see was the way they'd come in, and there would surely be further opposition waiting for them in the maze of halls. There was no telling how far they would get before either he or Yselt expended the last of their energy, leaving them even more strained to escape without serious injuries.
"Wymare...? What should we do?" Yselt asked, sounding afraid as the Shadows' groaning grew louder. Wymare swallowed the nervous lump in his throat the best he could and looked her in the eyes, unsure of how to answer her question. None of their options were ideal, and it seemed that Yselt picked up on his indecisiveness from the look he gave her, as her expression seemed to sink further as the prospect of her own death began to set in.
It was then that Wymare felt something small and hard hit him on the top of the head. As he cried out and raised a hand to cover the point of impact, he saw the offender fall to the floor in front of him after bouncing off, landing at his feet between him and Merliad. He leaned down and picked up the object before lifting it up to look at it, beholding a small metal oval with small holes dotting its surface and a button on the top. Confused, Wymare looked up to see if the strange trinket had fallen from something, and through the fog of Clerebold's memory, he saw a swift blur of movement dart away into the dark corners of the mess hall, skittering across the ceiling like an insect.
With the Shadows mere feet away from him and his allies, Wymare had no time to think about what had just happened. Instead, he turned his focus back to the foreign object, shifting it in his palm so the button was just below his thumb. Trusting that the mysterious figure had dropped it onto him for a reason, he brought himself closer to Yselt and Merliad, raised his hand over his head, and pressed the button.
The button clicked as Wymare pressed it, the innocuous sound being followed by a quiet sound of gas hissing inside the metal oval. Then, before the Persona-users and the Shadows could react, a thick smokescreen was jettisoned through the holes of the object, shrouding Wymare, Yselt, and Merliad in a protective cloud. Yselt looked around as the smoke surrounded her, and as Wymare looked up at the object in his hand, he saw light begin to shine through the holes as well. Predicting what was about to happen, he lowered his head and squeezed his eyes shut, managing to do so just before the tool let off a massive flash that was so bright he could see it through the back of his eyelids.
And then, all was silent. Gone was the groaning of the encroaching crowd of Shadows, having disappeared so abruptly that Wymare thought for a moment that he had simply whited out. When he opened his eyes, however, he saw that he was back in the cell block that served as the entry point for the rest of Clerebold's prison, sitting on the floor with Yselt and Merliad next to him.
"H-Huh? What happened?" Yselt asked, her bewildered gaze flying around the room. "How did we get here?"
"I... I don't know," Wymare answered, looking to the steel tool in his palm. "This just fell on me, and... I think it brought us here somehow?"
"What? How is that- I mean, what even is that thing? And what do you mean it 'just fell on' you? That's some incredible fortune."
"We can think about it later." Wymare slid the tool into his pocket, continuing, "We should focus on getting Merliad out of here so they can recover. Those Shadows could track us down any moment now."
"Well... Yes, I suppose you're right." Yselt turned her attention to Merliad, who was silently slumped on the floor. "Merliad? Can you hear us? We need to leave for now."
A comatose grumble was Merliad's only reply, their awakening's toll on their physical state leaving them unable to form a coherent answer. It didn't seem as though they would be able to carry themselves to the exit, and seeing this, Wymare dismissed his Persona weapon, slid an arm under Merliad's own, and held his hand on their back, helping them up and supporting their weight.
"Can you get the other side, Yselt?" Wymare asked. "We'll get them to one of the spare meeting rooms in the door hallway to rest. It should be far enough out of the way to talk without getting walked in on."
"Sure, that sounds good," Yselt replied while copying Wymare's posture on the other side of Merliad, the two of them supporting their limp ally enough to carry them out of the room and up the stairs to the main hall. Merliad rolled their head from side to side and made weak, distressed sounds as if to say they were capable of moving on their own, but Wymare and Yselt knew that was far from true.
As they walked, Wymare could not help but think about the figure on the ceiling that the tool in his pocket had almost surely originated from. Who were they, and why had they given him such a strange but effective item? He recalled how he had sensed another's presence in the halls of the prison. Had his shadowy benefactor been tailing him and Yselt ever since they entered the facility? Or had they been under their watch for even longer than that?
With no clear answer to his questions aside from his own guesses, Wymare set the issue of the stranger aside. They would be back in due time, and if he was lucky he would encounter the unknown figure again while exploring Clerebold's prison further. For now, his concerns needed to remain with the unresponsive caster on his arm.
After all, there was quite a bit of explaining that needed to be done.