An Anon-a-Miss Persona

by Arcanum -Phantasy

Ch.11 The Weeping Trees

The moon hung high in the sky, soaking the city streets with its crimson glow. Faint giggling and a passing breeze were the only sounds that chipped at their hunting silence. In one street in particular, an especially large mob of Jurors passed a dark alley. Two minutes after they left, a figure wearing a black hooded cloak peeked out of it. The figure scanned their surroundings and, still facing forward, gestured for something behind them forward before they darted to the nearest alley further down the street. Seconds later, a similarly garbed figure followed them into the same alley.

Pulling back her hood, Rarity leaned against, then slid down the alley's wall with a deeply frustrated sigh. Fluttershy did the same, standing in the middle of the alley with her hands on her knees and letting out shaky breaths.

"Three days." Rarity whisper-groaned, reaching for something in the shadow of her cloak near her belt-line. "Three. Bloody. Days."

Fluttershy nodded, aiming a frustrated glare at the alley's entrence from its farthest shadow.

After a week of rest and training, the two girls had headed out of the hotel to save yet another of their friends. With their Personas as their guides, they carefully navigated the city streets. While a few unavoidable battles occurred, none of them were as difficult as their clash with the Witness. Not wanting to tempt fate, both girls opted to maintain their stealth over testing their strength the farther they traveled from the hotel. While it was proving effective in terms of saving their Spirit and resources, it also cost them in terms of time.

"How much farther do we need to go?" Rarity grumbled, pulling out a granola bar.

"Not far," Arachne tiredly responded. "Your friend's magic presence is very close. Once we make it down the street, a left turn should take us right to her."

"Thank god," she lightly chuckled, taking a bite out of her snack. "How are you holding up, dear?"

"I-I can keep going," Fluttershy panted, a determined glint brightening her teal eyes.

Rarity nodded, tossing her friend a granola bar. Fluttershy let out a small surprised squeak, clumsily juggling the bar before she caught it in a near death-grip. She gave her giggling friend a small glare while she unwrapped it, pouting at her when she took a bite.

While the shy girl ate, Rarity fished a small slip of paper out of her pocket. She casually pushed some of her Spirit into it and a map of their current position bled onto its surface. As she had suspected, they were gradually edging closer to the border of the City of Punishment and the Dread Orchard. That knowledge put a chill down her spine, her mind instantly jumping back to her fight against the Witness.

"That will never happen again," she whispered, closing her eyes and trying to will her shaking to stop. "I am stronger. I am not alone. I can do this."

A hand on her shoulder snapped her out of her mantra with a start. Turning her head to face the hand's owner, she met her friend's reassuring smile with one of her own. After taking a few more minutes to catch their breaths, the duo gathered up their supplies and resumed their journey.

When they eventually made it to the turn Arachne mentioned, what they saw made them freeze. Peeking around a building down the street, they saw the city abruptly turn into a dark dirt trail about half way down. What few trees lined the path were withered with absolutely no leaves. The moon's light painted only added to the hellish despair of the scene, the cold silence filling the air with the chill of death. However, it wasn't the abrupt shift or the ominous feel of the path that gave them pause. That honor belonged to what they saw laying in the middle of it.

Keeping their guard high, they made their way towards the object in question, their steps letting out faint crunches when they crossed onto the path's dry gray dirt. They had hoped that their eyes were fooling them, that what they were looking at was a trick of the light. As they stood over the source of their dread, it was impossible for them to deny what it was.

Laying in a small red puddle , tattered and trampled, was a familiar brown stetson hat.

The duo stood over the hat in silence, slowly digesting what they were seeing. Taking a shuddering breath, Rarity broke it with a question.

"W-Was this what you were sensing, Arachne?"

She could feel her Persona's somber nod.

Swallowing her pain, she reached down and picked up the hat.

"Well, at least we know who we are tracking now," she sighed staring further down the path.

Fluttershy nodded, a determined frown sitting on her face as she followed her friend's gaze.

A four-miles-long path winded down a red-shined dead field before them. At its end stood a massive dark forest that spread far past the horizon. With hope for their friend's safety and determination in their hearts, they took their first of many steps onto the path.

Until a body was found, they refused to let their fears or worries drag them to despair.

***

The Dread Orchard was just as ominous as its name implied. Massive trees towered over Rarity and Fluttershy on all sides, the thick black canopy blocking out all, but a few thin rays of moonlight. Said trees added to the unsettling atmosphere. Their bark looked rough, but also fleshy and wet with a thin coat of slimy sap. Said sap came from face-like weeping markings seemingly carved into their trunks in random places, each face dripping the sap as tears from their "eyes". The fact that the "faces" resembled Sunset's added a spike of guilt to the fear slithering around the girls' hearts. Hanging on some of the lower branches, hidden among ash-gray leaves, where the dread fruit the grove was known for.

The fruit quickly killed any urge either girls may have had to sample them, even if they had not been made aware of their twisted nature. They held the general shape of apples, but their flesh resembled rotten meat. On top of that, each one sported a skull's face along with a steady stream of black sap dripping from their "eye holes". All of that, combined with the smell of burnt meat made the fruit the most horrid things the girls could've ever had the displeasure to stumble across.

The two girls tried to ignored the alien traits of the trees and their fruit while they made their way deeper in. Instead, they pushed their focus into trying to make sure there weren't any Shadows nearby. Both of them kept their hands on their weapons under their cloaks, Rarity's other hand holding the map viper gave them. Taking occasional looks at the enchanted map to note their current location, they continued their advance through the wooded shadows.

Just as her research revealed, there were no visible landmarks for Rarity to take note of. All of the trees were nearly identical in their strangeness and any marks she made into their trunks quickly healed away. If it wasn't for their map, she was more than certain that it wouldn't have been long before they lost their bearings.

Another thing she noticed was just how quiet the forest was.

While the City of Punishment had its pockets of quiet, a majority of it was still filled with the wicked laughter of Jurors to give at least the illusion of life. Aside from the occasional crunching of dried leaves under their shoes or the faint sounds of their breaths, the forest was completely silent. It put a small chill down both girls' spines, not by its presence, but by how fragile it felt. As if the silence was daring them to break it for one reason or another. What that reason was in particular? Neither girl was eager to see, if they could avoid it.

They flinched and froze when they heard a familiar sound. It was faint, but there was no way either of them could forget a Witness's lullaby. Trading glances, they nodded towards each other before they changed their rout. Unfortunately, the change did little to fix their problem. As soon as one song faded into the distance, a new faint echo of "La-la-la~la" and giggling would grace their ears from a completely different direction. Rarity kept a careful balance between keeping track of the sining and trying to track their position on her map. After doing this for at least an hour, she came to a very unfortunate discovery; both of them were walking in a giant circle.

That forced frustrated sigh out of her, already making peace with what they were going to have to do. As it stood, there were only two landmarks in the orchard. The first was a massive silo that served no notable purpose. The second was a massive farmhouse surrounded by a few smaller barns. Both of these landmarks were near the heart of the orchard with the farmhouse sitting directly in the middle. Since they hadn't even come across the silo yet, it was obvious that they needed to go further into the haunting forest. A decision that meant heading where the Shadows appeared to be gathered.

Fluttershy seemed to realize this as well, her shoulders slumping as she turned to face the orchard's heart. Letting out a reluctant sigh, Rarity drew her rapier before she made her way towards danger. Fluttershy did the same, puling a pair of hand sickles out from under her cloak, a thin silver chain connecting the weapons by the bottom of their handles.

***

Rarity took cover from behind a tree, blasts of fire and bolts of lightning flying around her from the other side. Three Witnesses giggled from a good distance away from her cover, each of them taking turns taking shots at her. A few trees away, Fluttershy was in an identical position, her pair of enemies firing spears of ice at her between giggle-fits. The second she heard the Witnesses start to laugh together, Rarity bolted out from behind the tree towards them. Before they could resume their onslaught, she pointed her key at the trio and summoned her Persona. With barely a thought, Arachne trapped them in a pillar of ice before she conjured ten floating ice-swords and ran them through. As the frozen Witnesses crumbled along with their prison, Fluttershy made quick work of her own aggressors.

Once the two Witnesses started giggling, Fluttershy summoned Medusa and trapped them in a tornado. Coming out from behind the tree with casual grace, she aimed a cold glare at the confused monsters. Channeling some of her Spirit into one of her sickles, she twirled it over her head like a green-glowing lasso. The weapon let out a high-pitched whistle as she swung it widely towards the cornered Shadows, cutting both of them cleanly in half.

While the Shadows' bodies crumbled away, the two girls regrouped with each other, both sported faint scowls.

"Just how many of those monsters live here?" Rarity growled, sheathing her weapon.

"Too many," Fluttershy sighed, clasping her sickles to her belt.

"Indeed," Medusa grumbled, her snake-hair letting out irritated hisses. "At least the groups are small."

"Considering how one of these demons dealt with my mistress and I, I fail to see that as a blessing," Arachne huffed, crossing her arms."

"Better to fight three than to fight thirty," Medusa countered, aiming a furrowed brow at the spider-woman.

Rarity and Arachne chose not to argue against that, both of them simply rolling their eyes in reluctant acceptance. Fluttershy gave a small giggle to that while her persona simply gave a triumphant smirk. Mumbling under her breath, Rarity dispelled her persona and pulled the map out of her pocket. Meanwhile, Fluttershy and Medusa kept watch over their surroundings.

While she wasn't happy about the number of fights they had to get through, she couldn't argue against their progress. In the past hour, they had, had to deal with ten different mobs of Witnesses to reach the halfway point of the orchard. Thankfully, the training the two girls went through made the battles more of a chore than anything else, but that didn't mean the girls were eager to jump into pointless fights. After all, they were here to find one of their friends; not knock down the Shadow population.

Though, I doubt anyone would argue against us doing so, she bitterly mused, starting to get her bearings.

After taking a moment to replenish their Spirit and drink some water, they resumed their march towards the forest's heart. While they walked, Rarity couldn't hold back the dark thoughts nagging at the back of her mind. She knew that Applejack was a strong and very resourceful girl, but she didn't know if that would be enough to last long here. Even with a Persona, the Shadows could be difficult opponents. She shuddered to think where she or Fluttershy would be without Viper's training at this point.

Then, there were the trees themselves.

Every trunk reminded her of the last time she saw Sunset, brining back the guilt she tried to stuff to the back of her mind. It was just as frustrating as it was painful the longer she trekked through the space between the trees. Were it not for Fluttershy, she was sure that she would've snapped from the conflicting feelings.

Pushing all of that to the back of her mind, she tried to keep her ears primed for any signs of the Witness' singing while noting their position on the map. In time, they came to yet another clearing, but this one held something that made them pause. Three Witnesses walked casually around in it, sining their lullaby and occasionally pulling a whole dread fruit into their mouths with long, tentacle-like tongues. Standing in the middle of the clearing was, what looked like, some kind of crudely crafted scarecrow. It stood roughly three feet tall and looked to be crafted from sticks taken from the surrounding trees. Frayed rope held the main body together with a pair of long branches pointing out to the sides in a T-like fashion for its arms. Its head was a burlap sack, bits of hay and dried grass sticking out of a few small holes in random points with a generic smily face painted on with some sort of black slime. The effigy wore a tattered pair of blue overalls and had a withered pink bow set to the back of its head to add to its eery design.

Both girls took in the scene from behind a pair of trees, neither sure what to make of the situation.

"What in the world?" Rarity softly asked.

Not even a second after the words left her mouth, a figure darted into the clearing straight towards one of the Shadows. A sickening crunch echoed through the clearing as the Shadow fell, its main body split open like a mellon and covered with cracks. It was only as the figure stood over the Shadow's body that they could properly identify the attacker.

It was a toned orange girl with long blond hair tied back into a ratty ponytail. She wore a tattered white t-shirt with black blood-stains, both dry and fresh, spattered all across it. Her gray sweatpants and bare feet were in a similar state, the latter covered with thin cuts and small bruises. Held tightly in her right hand was a small rusted sledgehammer, its head soaked in black blood. Though her face was blank and her green eyes held a fury neither girls had ever seen before, there was no way either of them could misidentify who it was that stood before them.

Before the two remaining Shadows had a chance to turn to face her, Applejack fearlessly charged towards them. Two more sickening crunches announced the end of the battle, the victorious girl staring down at the corpses with hate-filled green eyes. She spat on them, then made her way towards the scarecrow, her features softening with each step she took.

"Are ya' okay Applebloom?" she asked, kneeling down to the constructs "eye-level".

A moment of silence.

Applejack let out a relieved sigh, sporting a warm smile as she said, "Thank goodness. You need to be more careful. No tellin' how much longer we're gonna be in this place, y'know?"

Rarity and Fluttershy watched the "exchange" in concerned silence, trading matching glances every few seconds. Glances that quickly turned into terror when one of them stepped on a small branch on the ground. When they looked back out into the clearing, they were met with a pair of cold green eyes. They froze, torn between drawing their weapons and running from their friend. When the malice vanished from Applejack's features, some of their fear receded along with it. Instead, caution crept forth to take its place as the farm girl stood up straight and turned to face them fully.

"Howdy girls," she said, a thin, twitchy smile spreading across her lips.

"H-Hello, darling," Rarity gulped, stepping out into the clearing.

Fluttershy did the same, nervously nodding in greeting.

"Glad to see ya'll are all in one piece," Applejack chuckled. "Was starting to think mah kin was the only ones that ended up here."

"Is that so?" Rarity frowned, carefully studying her friend. "Then, you have not seen anyone else yet?"

She shook her head, a faint tremble going through her body for a second.

"Just you two, Granny, Mac, and Applebloom," she continued, pointing her thumb over her shoulder at the scarecrow.

"I...see," Rarity nodded, forcing a small smile. "That...well, at least you have them, right?"

"Yeah," Applejack chuckled, the sound just as stiff as the scarecrow behind her. "Speakin' of, we should start headin' back to the house. It ain't all that safe out here."

"Right," Rarity nodded. "Please, lead the way, darling."

Nodding and holding her stiff smile, Applejack started heading towards the northern side of the clearing and gestured for them to follow her. The duo traded worried frowns before they tailed her, careful to keep their hands close to the handles of their weapons. As they kept a keen eye on their stiff and twitchy friend, they hoped that they wouldn't need to draw them. Even acting the way that she was, they didn't know if they actually could bring themselves to do it in the first place.

Comments

[Harry_Jones]

Glad to see this isn't dead. Good chapter, looking forward to seeing this dilemma resolved. I can't imagine how Rarity and Fluttershy are going to convince Applejack that the scarecrow isn't AB. I'm also wondering if Mac and granny are really there or also figments of AJ's imagination... Guess I'll have to wait and see.

[Hexan Tronic]

Well, this will certainly be an issue. Especially when AJ ends up meeting the guilty trio in here.

[vectorVll]

What I appreciate about these stories is how they complete the circle of why Sunset should never be a princess or could never be one in the original story. Sunset, as a person, forgives her friends and the people who wronged her, much like what her friends did for her. However, in this story, Sunset gives in and goes back to her old ways, excusing her bad behavior with "they did it to me first," even though that's not true. The main situations stem from her bad reputation in the first place, with her wrongly involving them first. At least she understands she shouldn't try to do good things for forgiveness, but she did not learn the other lesson, which is to do good things because it's the right thing to do. But because I know this series pretty well I can pretty much guess there's going to be a second evil person the one who really caused all of this.

[PearlyDoesStuff]

Appleschizo. She's lost her marbles lol, guess we're gonna have to see Rarity and Fluttershy unfuck her head.