Persona: Innocent Wish

by Trismegistus

Chapter 36: Evoked

“Arata, there’s something I’d like to speak to you about.” Gear had mentioned that he wanted to speak to Arata earlier in the day. They had been moving what little equipment they had from the old camp to their new headquarters for most of the morning.

“Right, sorry, I’m not use to being in charge of things…” Arata was admitting this mostly to himself.

“That’s quite alright. Now, the other day Blaze swung by my office half-drunk and left me a hoof full of pages out of the notebook.” Gear seemed to be searching for the words, “Well I started to look over what he gave me, and well, I believe I’ve figured out how that pistol worked.”

Arata stared at him for a long minute, “Blaze did that?”

“Yes, he didn’t say anything more than ‘here, I’m still doin’ my part,’ before he staggered out.” Gear shook his head, “but that’s not the point, I think you should read what the pages say.”

‘What could Vox have written?’ Arata thought. There was still so much he didn’t understand about what had happened to her or why she did any of the things she had done.

Gear led Arata to his desk where he gestured to the loose notebook pages. “I’ll leave you to these, please come find me when you’re finished.”

Hesitantly at first, Arata began to read through the pages. At first, the writings seemed normal enough. It was Vox’s daily journal, apparently she had been recording most of their activities here. The entry they had been given detailed a day in which Vox adjusted her signal beacons; beacons that Arata now knew were entirely for show. There had never been any need for them, other than keeping the group off of her trail.

She described the day in an extraordinary amount of detail for something that seemed so mundane. But what surprised Arata more than that was the level of commitment she had to keeping the façade up. Even when she was alone she went to each beacon in order and preformed the same “repairs” she did the day Arata had followed her.

Arata continued to read until he reached the second page...

…

“I walked through the forest, I didn’t notice anything off at first. Everything was still, or at least as still as it always had been. I kept walking down the same trail and that’s really when I started to get the sense that something was off. I smelt something awful. It seemed like it was probably just some rotting plants so I ignored it, probably a mistake. I was almost at the next beacon when I found myself on my back with a set of claws pushing me to the ground and a timber wolf poised to tear my throat out. I didn’t think they would ever come this close to the camp.

My pistol was firing before I ever realized what was happening. The one on top of me was stopped while it had to reform. There was another one that I didn’t notice though. I felt its teeth clamp around my neck slowly, like something was stopping it from biting down. I opened my eyes and as I did I heard Morgana’s call. She appeared above me and on instinct I destroyed the wolves that had attacked me.

It was horrifying, before that moment I’d never actually feared for my life, I’d never felt something’s jaws tighten around my neck. That horror got me thinking. My experience there called forth my Persona, because my life was in danger; immediate, clear, danger. If I could duplicate that feeling, maybe I could control my Persona outside of the lake.

So I modified my pistol. And it worked. By adjusting the magic charge, and adding a spell based on telepathy, I was able to incite a state of fear, and that mixed with the pain of the impact was enough to summon my Morgana. Someday I’ll show this to the others.”

…

‘So she had known how to summon a Persona for that long,’ Arata thought, ‘and not even Blaze had any idea.’

“In order to fully understand how this device works I will need to see the gun itself Arata.” Gear began. “The details described here, along with the diagrams aren’t enough for me to duplicate what she did. Ivory Shield told me how pressing it was that we get everypony else a Persona and-”

“I’ll talk to Blaze,” This wasn’t about Persona’s anymore. With all that Blaze had gone through, after learning this, even if he denied it, he would need a friend. “I’ll get him to bring the thing to you.”

Arata left the new headquarters, trudging through the snow toward the tavern. There were a lot of foals out today, playing in the snow with no idea of what was unfolding all around them. Any one of them could end up like Autumn Tail. And the E.W.E.F. were the only ones here left to protect them. They had to protect them, they’d live to see the next change of seasons. Something that more and more ponies were unable to do.

The bar was empty, except for Blaze, floating in the bottom of a glass. Walking up to the bar, Arata pulled out a seat. Blaze looked up, eyes bloodshot, and face lined with a black dusting of stubble.

“Kid”, was the only acknowledgment Arata got, and it was all he really needed.

“I’m not going to leave until you talk to me.” Arata said, searching deep inside of himself to confront his friend.

Blaze sat silently staring down into his glass. “Draft, another.” Blaze called.

“Ya’ haven’t paid for those today, you still got money left?” The bar keeper yelled back.

Placing a bag of bits on the table Blaze responded, “Plenty.”

Draft shifted his attention to Arata, “Anything for you?”

“What he’s having, please.”

As the glasses were set in front of them Blaze began to speak. “So what do you want?” Taking a long sip from the glass he shuddered, and set it back down.

Arata didn’t know where he should start, there was so much that he could say, but it felt like he was walking on thin ice. “I want to help you.” The first thing he said and already it felt like he wasn’t going to make any difference.

“And how do you intend to do that?” Blaze didn’t even spare Arata a glance.

“I… I don’t know exactly. But you’re one of my friends, and I can’t just sit back and watch as you drown in that glass…” He wasn’t just one of his friends; Camphor, Blaze, Vox, Compass Rose, Ivory, they’d been his best friends, he’d never had friends like this before. “We are all feeling the burden of what happened. Nopony should have to bear all of that alone.”

“Kid, you don’t know the burden I’m feeling. So I want you to take my advice. Go back, and do what you have to without me. I’ve done enough to help that fog demon.”

So it wasn’t just the guilt of Vox. It was so much more. Blaze blamed himself for everything. Finding the lake, going back and in doing so fueling Morgana. Exposing Vox to that magic which would eventually lead to her death. It was a chilling realization. Arata had blamed himself for a lot of what had happened as well, but he never thought that Blaze would do the same. How could he help Blaze when he couldn’t even figure out how to deal with these feelings himself?

“I think I do know the burden you’re feeling.” Arata began, “I’ve felt it since Autumn Tail died. The feeling like all of this is your fault. We’ve been in this together since then. We’ve been exploring together from the beginning. I’m just as guilty as you are.”

“Kid…” Blaze’s voice flared with anger and then died down. “You didn’t kill her. You didn’t know this was going to happen for months. You didn’t have her voice in your head as she died.” The crescendo ended in a roar. “So don’t tell me you feel the same burden as me.”

“Blaze…” Arata didn’t know what he was talking about, why so much of what happened hidden from him and the rest of the group. How much of this could have been prevented if everypony hadn’t kept secrets.

“Get out kid, you’ve said enough.” Blaze finished the rest of his drink, and called for another.

Arata wanted to stay, he wanted to say more, but he lacked the courage to do so. He felt that he understood Blaze’s pain a bit more, though for everything new he understood, he learned how much further Blaze’s sorrow went. Just as he thought had found the courage to say something to his friend, a pair of voices from the back of the bar began to flare up. Arata turned to see an arguing couple, and as he did he knew he missed his chance to make a final comment to Blaze.

“I can’t just be quiet when Twinkle asks me why we aren’t going to be living together anymore.” The stallion said, with a raised and frustrated tone. His well-kept brown mane shaking over his white coat.

The mare had her hair tied up so her piercing green eyes could be seen. “You are going to do just that. I can’t have our daughter realizing how much of a sham our marriage has been this whole time. I don’t want her to get the wrong idea of what life is like!”

Taken aback the stallion responded with the same hostility given to him, “Marriage was a sham? What are you talking about? Yeah things have gotten bad, but you’re lying to yourself if you think this was how it has always been. And life is like this! We’re adults, it’s our job to explain to her why something like this is going on, poor girl must be horrified by all of this!”

“There you go with your high and mighty mindset! I don’t need a lecture from you on how to deal with my kid.” The mare scoffed.

“She is our kid, Ruby.” The stallion protested. “We are both responsible for her.”

“There is no ‘we’ anymore, Sapphire.” She turned to Arata. “You, you’ve been listening to us for a while. Tell this how much of a pretentious ass he’s acting like.

“Damn it to the moon.” Sapphire sighed. “Fine, I’ll stop.” He turned to Arata, “I’m sorry you were dragged into this.” He turned his back on the mare and left the bar.

The mare didn’t spare Arata another thought before walking to the bar.

Tension seemed to be building in everpony lately. Arata could feel a new weight setting in on top of him.