Chapter 1. The Fool in the Velvet Room (edited)

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"You have 6 months, I'm sorry but there's nothing we can do. The disease has spread to much throughout your body. I predict you'll have 5 months being completely healthy, during the 6th month you'll start showing symptoms and finally organ failure. Then you have to spend your remaining time on earth waiting for death in a bed. Again, I'm sorry."

That was what the doctor had told me, he didn't even sugar coat it. My life was going perfectly and then I find out that I have the same genetic disease as my father, the disease doesn't even have a name because they can't figure out what causes it.
My father died before I was born, and I only found out recently why he died because of the doctor. I understand why my mom didn't tell me earlier, but a part of me wish she had because maybe I would have takin life a bit more seriously. But as the saying goes "Ignorance is bliss" and I have to say that describes my life perfectly.
I grew a up in Sweden and had a pretty good life, mom and my grand parents were my only family, and I was never bullied in my school years, at least I don't think so. When I became 22 years old I got into college and made two new friends, I was still keeping contact with my old friends from middle and high school as well, but there were only three of them close enough for me to hang out with. My life was good... and increadibly boring.

I don't know why but I felt like there was nothing in this world that brought me true joy, even when I spend time with friends and family I could only smile because they were smiling. There was never a time in my life that filled me with the excitement that everyone else apparently felt, even during my birthday and christmas, it just didn't bring me the same happiness that others showed. I've tried so many hobbies from dancing, gymnastics, drawing, writing poetry, chemistry, tailoring, cooking, hiking, mountain climbing, martial arts, fencing and even playing instruments like piano, violin, drums, bass and guitar. The only time I ever smiled was when others where smiling, which is what caused me to develop such a need to help people with whatever they needed help with, especially my grand parents on their farm.

People always say that the world is filled with amazing wonders and colours. But to me? It's all Grey, as if whatever colours everyone else was seeing just wasn't there for me. Whenever I was alone I would spend my free time reading manga and comic books, watching animated tv shows or playing video games. Anything that could distract me from this boring world was the only thing that kept me from falling into depression. It was after I had finished Persona 4 Golden and started playing Persona 5 Royal that I picked up one of my wierder hobbies that suprisingly stuck with me, tarot card reading.

After making a new world record for the longest "sigh", I decided to simply lock myself in my appartment and finish Persona 5 Royal. My appartment was nothing special, it only had four rooms, a hallway, a kitchen, a bathroom and a living room that double as my bedroom. When the credits were rolling and I was crying my eyes dry, I glanced over at the coffee table and saw my tarot cards. With nothing else to currently distract me I said "F**k it" and started doing some fortune telling.
I never understood why people don't like Chihaya Mifune in Persona 5.

Contemplating on what to do a fortune on, I decided to just leave it too fate and see what would happen, and what I got was questionable.
Tarot Cards and Arcanas have multiple meanings, many times you need to decide a specific topic and look through all possible results and do multiple tries with different methods in order to get a proper answer, the topics can be predicting the future or describing a person for example, and the multiple meanings usually has a percentage connected to them.
What I decided as the topic was "A day when a mayor change might happen," it was a really vague topic but I ended up with an answers anyway. The answer I got was a prediction of a gateway to a great journey that would present itself between end of May and the beginning of June.

"A vague topic with a vague answer... great." I said to no one in particular, "I got nothing to lose, I'm gonna die anyway so I might aswell waste away looking for a pointless sign hope, still almost a month worth of time is a large area of time to cover... Let's not waste any time then."

I started searching around the internet to see if I could find anything major, or atleast major within my interest, that could be my answer to the fortune. After nearly three hours I started feeling drowsy and decided to hit the hay. Or at least I was gonna until my friend Mark decided to call me.

"Hello" I answered half asleep.

"Sup brother from another mother, what are you doing?" Mark asked happily.

"... I "was" sleeping..." I answered with frown that he couldn't see.

"Cool cool, hey I was wondering, have you ever been intrested in cosplay?"

"Wut? Why?"

"So there is gonna be a this huge Comic Con Event in Gothenburg and I was wondering if you would like to go and cosplay."

"Eurrgh, sure why not, what do I have to lose?" Literally. "When is it gonna happen?"

"It's going to be open May 30th and close in June 2th."

"..."

"Hello? You still there bro?"

Now wide awake because of that, I stare silently at the Tarot card prediction I left lying on the coffe table and begin to brainstorm. This has to be a sign, I've never been religous but I have always been facinated with genres like supernatural, mythology and cosmic powers. It's some of the things I used to escape from reality and if this is not a sign, then I don't know what it is.
This. Is. It.

"Yeah, sounds great, lets do it." I answered with newly found energy.

"Awesome! Just think of a cosplay and make sure its good. Later!" he said happily and hung up.

Now you be wondering why I would get excited over a Convention, well one of my other hobbies I picked was reading fanfictions. And on a particular site for a particular fandom, I found a genre of fanfics that not only opened up nearly infinite possibilities, but was also supported by multilpe reports of people going missing during conventions and rumours of a mysterious merchant.

Is it possible that this is all just a coincidence that will leave me dissapointed and crush my hopes and dreams of being transported to another world, as well as my soul?
Most likely YES, but again I have nothing to lose!

"But what should I cosplay as?" I ask myself.

And the universe gives me an answer with a youtube notification on my phone showing a "Let's Play" of Persona 3.

"But of course!" I say with a french accent.

The next five months were spent planning and making my costume, thank whatever god convinced me to learn tailoring. I decided that I would go and live out my next potential life as Velvet Room Minato. A deep blue vest over a black long sleeved shirt with thin light blue stripes, an ocean blue necktie, dark blue pants and stylish deep blue shoes. Complete with dyed golden blond hair and gold yellow eyes that glow in the dark, my new form is complete. I also brought my tarot cards to go with the theme.
After spending some quality time with my friends and taking photos with cosplayers, there was one guy dressed as Minatos final persona "Messiah", I decided it was time and check if the rumours were true.

I had seriously underestimated how big this place was, I've been walking alone for two hours now and found nothing. I was slowly starting to feel depressed and I could feel my body weakening from overworking it. I was expecting this but a big part of me was really hoping it would be true, I guess reality really is cruel.

"Hello stranger" came a voice to my right.

Slowly I turn to the all so famous accent and low and behold the entity I was looking for was standing right infront of me, dressed as the merchant from Resident Evil 4, with a booth filled with items from a large variety of anime, comics, movies and video games that semingly appeared out of nowhere.

"Looking for something?"

If a smile could emit light, mine would have been blinding. But I decided to catch myself before my hopes got to high.

"*cough* Yes and maybe you have what I'm looking for." I said composed.

"What are searching for young lad?"

"You wouldn't happen to have access to the Le Grimoire from the Persona franchise, containing all personas from every arcana and a map of equestria?" I said trying to sound professional but realised I might have said to much.

"*sigh* You know I usually act like I don't care but I can tell that you're desperate and that you don't have a lot of time left in this world." the Merchant said in serious but sympathetic tone.

"Yeah, I have about a month left before my body starts breaking down." I explained with a depressed tone.

He nods, "I actuelly knew that someone with potential was gonna come here today and I happen to have exactly what you need and more."

He goes behind his booth and comes back with a plethera of items, on him was the Le Grimoire that I asked for but he also brought a red revolver that a recognise as Judge of Hell, the sword Hinokagutsuchi, a key chain that had a crown on it that had text that said SALVATION printed on it and many other other weapons and items I recognise from Persona 5 Royal.

"But why?" I say in disbelief.

"You're about to leave this world anyway, leaving everything behind, I give you everything you need in order to become the ultimate Wild Card and you give me everything, including your identity." he explained.

"Why would you need my identity?"

"The rumours are becoming more frequent and it's only a matter of time before people start swarming to find my location, I can't leave this world yet, it's not good for my business. In order to stay hidden I need to change my identity occasionally, as a bonus for giving me everything, I'll also give you this." he said as he reach into his pocket and brought out a very familiar key.

"This will give you access to your own Velvet Room were you are the master, it will also allow you to invite others of your choosing into the Velvet Room through the Dream Realm whenever you fall asleep. It is also the area where you will be able to create and customise your Personas with full access to skills and abilities that weren't available in the latest installments of the franchise."

"I... I don't know what to say... this is more than..." I was struggling to talk as tears started to fill my eyes.

"Hey, don't get all emotional with me, I'm not doing this for you. This is what I do for a living and you dying just so happen to work in my favor. Any particular request for what type of equestria you want to be sent to."

Recomposing myself, I quickly think and answer, "Level 4 anthro and not too dark. I'm not to picky on when I should arrive but make it different from the main timeline so that it's not to predictable. Could I also have some small devise that allows me to listen to music from this world without the need for Wifi."

"Do you want Head phones with those?"

"Yes please."

"It shall be done," he answered satified, "Have safe trip."

I smile, finally letting a tear run down my cheek and say "Thank you and good luck yourself" to the merchant as I fall into unconsciousness and disappear in a white light.

The merchant goes towards the spot I ones stood at and picks up my wallet that was the only thing remaining of me, he looks through to make sure everything is there. He shoots one last glance to where I once stood and says:
"Good luck Minato. Make sure to enjoy yourself."

The first thing that comes to my mind as I slip back into consciousness is how much my head hurts. Reminds me of the first and only time I had a hangover, tip for everyone, do not take 9 Fernet shots in a row on your first time.

I slowly open my eyes and is greeted by a beautiful night sky and a... caged silver seeling?
Struggling to sit up and take in my surroundings I look around me to see that I'm sitting on a dirt path going up hill and surrounded by a field of blue flowers. I recognise some of the flowers because my mother always loved flower and the colour blue, the flowers I recognise are Iris, Delphinium, Blue star, Hydrangea and Brunnera. There are others but the names aren't coming to me.
As I look around me I realise that the entire hill is surrounded by a giant silver bird cage, down the dirt path is a door that leads outside of the cage, the door has a silver frame and seems to be made of metal. On the door is a painting with a blue flower field on the bottom. There is a depiction of a blue tree in the middle of the door, its flower covered brancess seem to form a hand that is reaching for the night sky that surrounds it. At the top of the door is a half way Solar Eclipse with the sun burning on left side while the moon is emiting some dark mist on the right side. In the middle of the moon is a silhouette of what appear to be a dark unicorn with burning golden eyes.

Outside the cage I see nothing but ruins of what appeared to have been a ones great kingdom, a castle crumbled with various houses collapsed. I don't see any bones but I do see weapons like spears, sword and axes in some places. The ruins are surrounded by towering walls made of stone bricks, the walls are covered with cracks but it looks sturdy.

I turn around and look up towards the hill and see a beautiful blue tree at the top of it. It appears to a blue chinese Wisteria tree, but it is far larger than any wisteria tree I've seen. The stem of the tree is much thicker and goes alot higher before meeting the crown.

Not wanting to walk on the beautiful flowers, I walk up towards the tree and notice that it's standing on a stone platform. The stone bricks that make up the platform are square shape but somehow the platform is a circle. The tree is standing at the center of the platform and its crown covers it almost entirely with its shade.
Near the base of the tree is a Victorian style round wooden table with five legs, one leg being at the center underneath the table. Around the table are four victorian style chair with cushion arm rests and pillows, both the table and the chairs are on top of a dark blue round carpet. On the table is a plate with an English silver tea set with four cups, one tea can, one bowl of sugar, one can of milk and four spoons.

I make my way towards the table and notice that my surroundings are starting to illuminate. I look up and see that the flower on the tree crown have started glowing in some form of bio luminescence. Shaking myself out of my amazement, I continue to walk towards the table and see that the tea set was not the only thing on the table. The Le Grimoire is placed on the table in front of one of the chairs, there appears to be a letter placed on top of it.
As I walk towards the spot I notice that the chair that the book is in front of is different, the chair is the closest one to the center, with the tree being right behind the backrest. The backrest of the chair is higher than the others and there is an engraving on top of it that says "MASTER". Looking back at the letter I take my seat and begin to read it.

"Greeting Minato and welcome to the Velvet Room, or more specifically Your Velvet Room. This place exist between dream and reality, mind and matter, it is the place were you can relax and take in everything that has happened to you so far."

I pause to take in the information that I have my own pocket dimension.

"This is where you will be able to create, customize and test your personas, the book is filled with cards that contains personas, skills and abilities, some abilities are not even from Persona or Shin Megami Tensei so feel free to get creative. Each persona does however have limits to what skills they can learn and the amount of skills that they can have at ones, some abilities are completely unique to specifik personas and can't be learned no matter what."

That's fair, it's a good way to balance things out.

"The room itself however has the ability to expand and change to the masters will, you can for example make the platform bigger so that you have more room to test some of your more destructive personas. You can also manipulate the passage of time in here, from time completely stopping or simply going slower than normal, you can even set a timer so that you know how much time has past."

So it doubles as a Hyperbolic Time Chamber, awesome.

"You can also bring others into the room using the Key in your pocket, but that doesn't stop others from entering the Velvet Room from time to time. Only those that are chosen or need the room can find and enter it however."

I didn't even realise I had the key in my left pant pocket, I wonder how I summon my other weapons?

Right on cue, I can feel that I now have the knife Paradise Lost in my right hand, apparently I can just summon the weapons by thinking about them. Also what was that about others being able to enter when they are chosen or need the room?

"This equestria will have a different history from the one you're used to, however certain events will still happen no matter what so you will be able to prepare yourself for what's to come. Good luck, but most importantly enjoy yourself."
"From your good friend: Mark the Merchant."

...Wait... WHAT!

Chapter 2. New Company (edited)

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Persona!

I yell as the card in my hand, respresenting the Judgement arcana, shatteres like glass to form a tall white humanoid figure with blonde hair and red eyes.
The figure was skinny with a thick white cloth covering its neck and shoulders, it was wearing a metallic silver chest plate. Its stomach, arms and legs were covered in square like patterns. It's wearing white gloves and its feets where more like white hooves with no visible feet. Its right hand was placed on its chest like it was feeling its heartbeat through the chest plate, while its left hand was covered in a chain that connected to four small coffins with depictions of four winged angels covered in white robes holding medieval swords to their chests with both hands. On its back was a long triangular silver blade with two large metal wings connected at the bottom of the figures back, human hands were connected at the elbow joints of the wings, the tip of the blade pointed straight up to sky above its head while the wings folded around the figures waist with the hands holding together near its stomach like a prayer.

This figure was "Messiah", the final persona of the protagonist in Persona 3, one of the strongest personas in the Judgement arcana, the only persona in the Universe arcana and the second persona in the World arcana. It is also my personal and only persona at the moment.

"I am Messiah. From here forward, I shall exist together with you..." he says with a divine tone.

"Glad to have you partner." I answer trying not to squeel with excitement.

I was curious on how the summoning would work since I didn't wear a mask like in Persona 5 and I didn't want to shoot myself in the head like in Persona 3. I'm so glad that it was the Persona 4 mechanic were you just shatter the card that represents the Arcana of the Persona.

I was also curious over if the Persona was capable of communicating with its user, since I know that Shadows that turn into Personas are like their own personality.
Apparently the answer is "yes", you can communicate with it. Sadly since he is my other half it's basically like I'm talking to myself but worse. Messiah likes and hates the same things I do but his personality is so melancholic and judgemental, which I guess makes sense since he belongs to the Judgement arcana.
Another thing that I don't like about Messiahs personality is that his personality represents what I don't like about myself, specifically my grey world view.

However, I wont reject him and go through the trouble of facing myself, because I will accept him with open arms, just like how I accepted my journey to another world.
Speaking of that, I still can't belive that Mark was the Merchant, or at least one of the mercants since I don't know if there are more than one. If the multiverse is infinite then what's to say that there isn't more than one.
I wonder how long Mark was the merchant and if he was responsible for all the other disappearances? Their was a time, where I didn't see or hear from him for three years. Was that around the time he became a merchant? If so then how?...
Well no point trying to think about it since I can't get the answers. Right now it's Persona test run time!

I spent around an hour trying out different abilities that Messiah possessed and what weapons and other equipment Mark lent me. All I have to do is simply think about the weapon I want, then it will appear in my right hand.

For melee weapons I have: the dagger Lost Paradise, the mace Imprisoned Mjolnir, the scimitar Claíomh Solais, the Dainaraka Whip, the katana Usumidori, the knuckle dusters Gorodias, the great axe Fleurs du Mal, the long sword Hinokagutsuchi and the rapier Sword of Sinai.

For long range I have: the Tyrant Pistol, the shotgun Megido Blaster, the slingshot Sudarshana, the sub machine gun Gungnir, the machine gun Providence, the revolver Judge of Hell, the grenade launcher Yagrush, the ray gun Ancient Day and the rifle Sahasrara.

Mark gave me the best weapons from Persona 5 Royal... and I love him for it. I never understood why there was no concept art or close ups of the weapons in Persona 5. It's a shame you could only see the weapons during fights.

When I summoned Messiah to do a little test run on the platform, which I discovered can expand to my will to make more room. However I did not think of doing that until after Messiah had fired off the Almighty elemental attack Megidolaon and sent me and him flying across the flower field and face planting into the bird cage. Luckily Messiah also knew the Healing skill Oratorio and the flower field and platform could regenerate and restore itself.

I decided to look through what skills and abilities Messiah had in the Le Grimoire and what I discovered was that he was already Max Level and had the exact same build I made for him in Persona 5 Royal.
His Trait was Hallowed Spirit which doubles the amount of HP and SP restored to oneself.
For action skills he has Oratorio (fully restores ones health and restores any lowered stats) and Megidolaon (Severe Almighty Damage in a massive range).
For passive skills he has: Almighty Boost, Almighty Amp, Insta Heal, Enduring Soul, Regenerate 3 and Invigorate 3.

I look up from the book and see Messiah looking over my shoulder with a shocked expression. Apparently he recognises the build as well from our memories and he has apparently been with me for longer than I knew, it was just that I didn't have the means to summon him before I arrived here.
Not sure whether or not that it's reasuring or creepy, the fact that I had a second personality for maybe my entire life that has simply been trapped deep within my psyche is quite shocking.

Deciding that I have been in the here for more than enough, I decided to look and see what is on the otherside of that door. I walk down from the platform and down the road, I look up to the sky as I walk and see something that nearly made me stop. Apparently in the Velvet Room there's a permanent Solar Eclipse, a black circle surrounded by white flames, now that is something you don't get to see often.
I continue my walk down the road and finally make it to the door, I try to pull it opened, only for it to be locked. I continue to pull and pull and pull, until I feel something touch my shoulder. I turn around and see Messiah pointing down bellow his waist, while I give him a confused look. He then shakes his head like he was dealing with an idiot... and then it hits me that I am an idiot!

"Oh right, the key." I say with both me and my other half facepalming.

I use the key to open the door and see what's on the other side. Only to met with an infinite black void.
I look right and left, up and down and see nothing but darkness. I decide to spit into the void and listen, there is a satisfying whistle and never an indication that there is a bottom.

"Hmmm, this can't be right." Messiah says.

"I'll have to agree with you on that one," I answer myself, "where is the other side?"

We continue to look into the void and a creeping feeling of dread start to run up my spine until it is interupted by a jumpscare in the form of a hig pitched feminine "Hello!" coming from right behind us.

I jump and give the most non manly "KYAH!" I can muster and would have fallen into the void if Messiah hadn't grabbed my arm and pulled me back in.
I'm shaking from my near death experience and am currently hugging Messiah like my life depended on it. He hugs me back and is also shaking like a leaf, apparently we are connected on a emotional level so that if I'm scared and fearing for my life, he's scared and fearing for his life.

We both look up and see a tiny female humanoid hovering and giggling at us. She's wearing a blue skin tight thong back one piece swimsuit, with stockings and elbow gloves. Her hair and eyes are rose red and her ears pointy, but the most eyebrow lifting thing about her is the insect like wings she's using to fly.

"Tihihi, that was the cutest scream I've ever heard!" she continue to laugh.

Recomposing myself, I stand up to confront our little intruder with Messiah right behind me.

"May I ask who you are sweety?" me and Messiah say at the same time as we glare at her, giving out quite the authourity and divine feel to our tone.

The pixie flinches and stops laughing, "Oh eheheh, sorry about that. My name is Pixie but I can receive a new name from you if you want master."

I calm down and continue, "I never summoned a Pixie or any persona except for this guy, so how did you get here?"

"I was brought here by the Mercant to be your guide and emotional support partner as an apolegy because he messed up." she explained.

I raise an eyebrow, "What do you mean he 'Messed up'?"

"Well he might have put you in a specific part in equestrias history where the door to this room hasn't manifested yet." she explained sheepishly.

And now I'm worried. "What do mean 'hasn't manifested yet'?"

"As in, the other side of the door isn't going to be here until about five hundred or so years."

There was silence... followed by more silence... and more silence.
Pixie starts to look uncomfortable and is beginning to sweat and laugh nervously. I take a deep breath and start walking back to sit in my chair.
I sit down and look towards Pixie and then Messiah.

"*Breaths deep* Megidolaon." I say with sigh.

Messiah charges up energy into his right hand and turns towards Pixie, her eyes widens in horror and she starts to shake with fear. Messiah winds his arm back and Pixie closes her eyes expecting death, only for the blue orb to fly right past her into the night sky and what can be best described as a blue sun lights up the sky.
Pixie opens her eyes and turns around and looks to the sky, she turns back and looks at me confused, I smile and give an answer to her confusion.

"That was for scaring me and laughing at my non manly scream." I say with smug smile.

She stares at me in silence for what felt like an eternity and then her face scrunches up tears begin streaming down her face. She falls down to the ground on her knees and starts to openly crying making my heart ache from guilt.
Maybe I took it to far.

"Waaaahhh, you're so mean!" she cries, "I thought I was gonna die! Waaaahhhh!"

I stand up from my chair and begin walking towards her, I kneel down and gently pick her up, she's so small that she can sit in the palm of my hand and hang her legs down the edge. I walk back to chair with Messiah standing by my side and gently pet Pixies head with a finger as she continues to cry into my chest.

After about an hour, Pixie had finally stopped crying so that I could continue to ask questions. According to Pixie, Mark had sent her to be my company and guide since I'm about five hundred or so years before the begining MLP FIM, so I've got a lot of free time currently.
Honestly I expected worst. I mean from what I have heard some displaced where unfortunate to get turned to stone and wait for one thousand or so years, I take being stuck in a pocket dimension over that any day. One good thing about this is that this means that I have all the free time in the world to understand my powers over the Velvet Room and the powers over my personas.

She also told me that I can basically spawn whatever I want in the Velvet Room, including but not limited to Television, Gaming consoles, Books, a Kitchen and a screen showing what is currently happening outside in equestria... Well that's convenient.
But before I do any of that I need to decide a name for Pixie, I know I can technically just keep calling her Pixie but since she gave me the option of changing her name, why wouldn't I?
But what to name her? She is a fairy, so maybe a fairy name? Or maybe I should name her after a flower? Should it be after a purple flower or a red flower? No, there isn't a name that would fit her personality, she a bit of a crybaby but she is also very commited, she is also pretty and have a strong will. Beauty, strength and elegance... AHA! Of course!

"You're name will be Dahlia!" I suddenly announce.

"Dahlia?" she tilts her head.

"Since your inheritance element is Electricity, I thought that a yellow flower would fit you better," I explain, "In Victorian times, dahlia flowers were used to represent a commitment shared forever by two people, but they also symbolize beauty, elegance, and strength. Which fits you perfectly."

"Dahlia... Dahlia..." she repeats the name trying to get a feel for it.
"Dahlia... I love it!" she happily exclaims.

She flies towards me and pecks me on the cheek, both her and I then start glowing in a blue light and she began speaking her vow.

"I'm Pixie Dahlia, I'm going to be your partner from now on and have some fun!" she happily exclaim as her voice is resonating with power.

My book starts to glow in a blue light and opens up on its own, showing the card of the Lovers arcana right next to Messiahs Judgement arcana.
So that's how that works, the first page of the book seems to show the current personas I have equipped. I also notice that Dahlias stats are actuelly pretty high for being level 3, her attack, magic, endurance, agility and luck are all 30. She also has the Trait Bargain Bolts (Lowers the SP cost of Elec skills by 75%). Other than that tho, her skill slots are completely empty giving me room to customise her from scratch.

But before I do that I wanted to check and see what Dahlia was talking about before. About the fact that I can see what is currently happening in equestria.
I imagine a large TV-screen showing up on the other side of the tree. As I imagine, blue wisps starts to fall from the tree and form into a roughly around 75 inches or 190 cm size flat TV. And just like that a large television screen, similar to what one rich friend of mine had in his living room, was now attached to the trunk of the tree on the opposite side from the table and chairs.
I then thought of a big comfy couch, large enough for eight people to sit in. Just like before blue wisps starts to fall from the tree crown and I proceeded to make myself comfortable on the newly formed large blue couch. Messiah decided to stand behind the couch because the blade on his back along with his wings got in the way, while Dahlia planted herself on my lap instead of sitting next to me.
I didn't notice before but now when Dahlia is sitting in my lap, she's a lot curvier than what she appeared to be in the games. An hour glass figure with wide child bearing hips and a chest that seems to be D I guess, at least D in her size.

"GOD I hope I don't get a boner while I sit here," I thought in my head, "focus on the screen and not smol and sexy fairy."

I hold out my hand, blue wisps falls down the tree and turns into a remote for the TV. The screen turns on and I see a text saying "N.I.E" standing for News In Equestria, which has to be the least interesting and most basic name for a NEWS channel I have ever heard.

"Let's just hope that there are no commercials." I thought to myself.

The screen finally shows something and it's not what I expected. When you think about MLP FIM, you think about Ponies, Friendship, bright colours and Magic. Basically what you'd imagine a child friendly fantasy world would be, but instead I'm treated to seeing all of that on fire.
The screen show acres of land with villages and castles on fire. Anthro ponies running away panicking in the absolute chaos and destruction. Now I'm really curious as to where I am in Equestrias history, since Dahlia said that I was currently around five hundred years before the begining of the show, it can't Nightmare Moon, Discord or Tirek since they were sealed away at least five hundred or so years ago. Sombra never left the Crystal Empire since he never got the chance to begin his invasion, or at least that's how it was in the show.
Actuelly, Mark said that certain events would play out no matter what, but some might have a different ending since this is suppose to be a different universe. The question is what incident happened around five hundred years ago? Celestia is alone at this time so it can't be...
Wait, Celestia is alone and there was one event in the show that was never properly explained. Or more specifically there where several centuries worth of history that was never explained what happened during Celestias rule.

I look down and see Dahlia with a worried expression while holding both her hands to her mouth. I look to my left and see Messiah leaning over my shoulder, looking intently at the screen. I know he's frustrated because I'm frustrated that I am unable to do anything about this situation, for now I need to figure out what exactly is happening.

My gaze returns to the screen and I see something that was not from MLP attacking a poor unicorn stallion. What I saw was a "Shadow", a physical form of suppressed thoughts from the lower part of everyones psyche. When people are unable to face their darker selves, they break loose, free from all control.
The shadow was a Gigas-type shadow, a shadow that appears like a metal giant sporting wrestling speedos, its mask being worn on the upper part of the face right above the mouth.

The shadow picked the stallion up by his leg and slammed him into the ground, it looked really powerful but not enough to kill. I could see that the stallion was alive but something seemed to be oozing from his body, at first I thought it was blood but the blood started evaporating and shape into a Phantom-type shadow.
Phantom-types appears as clocked figures with cyclop like mask covering their face and has a lantern where its stomach should be.

After the shadow had finished forming they just left the stallion alone and walk away, it seems like the shadows don't actuelly kill the ponies but more just knock them unconsious. Each time a pony is down a shadow appears.

Now I really need to know what is happening, where is Celestia during all of this?
The screen changes its view to the sky and what I see leaves me confused. I see a anthro version of Princess Celestia fighting an anthro version of Daybreaker, yep this is definently different from the show.
Celestia and Daybreaker are flying across a red sky, looking like the entire world was on fire, with their bodies clashing and beams of magic induced fire flying across the sky. Occasionally their attacks would miss eachother and hit some of the shadows on the ground.
After a while Daybreaker was knocked down to the ground creating a crater around her. The shadows started swarming her but she retaliated by blasting them with fire and grab some that where close to throw at Celestia. One of the launched shadows hit Celestia knocking her to the ground. She fell and just like Daybreaker, she was also swarmed by shadows.

At this point I was really confused. I thought at first that Daybreaker was controlling the shadows to take over equestria but apparently not. Whenever one of them would fall to the ground the shadows would immediately attack them. What is happening?

Both Celestia and Daybreaker rush towards eachother and their clash creates a huge blinding explosion that incinerates any shadows nearby, obliterates buildings and sets the landscape ablaze.
The smokescreen created from the collision clears and both Celestia and Daybreaker stare at eachother panting for breath. Their clothes torn and burned, their bodies bruised and beaten, both look like they are about to pass out any second now. But before that could happen, Daybreakers mane flares and she charges towards Celestia who seems to be focusing on her magic. A bright blinding light is suddenly unleashed from Celestia and I can hear her speaking.

"YOU WILL NEVER BE IN CONTROL!" Celestia shouts with her Royal Canterlot voice, "YOU WILL NEVER HAVE IT YOU WAY AND YOU WILL NEVER HURT ANYPONY EVER AGAIN! NOW BEGONE FROM MY SIGHT!"

There is a booming sound of an explosion accompanied with the sound of glass shattering as I'm suddenly blasted off the couch by a powerful warm gust of wind and something colliding into me.

I open my eyes slightly groaning as I feel my entire body aching as I'm lying down on my back, I feel something heavy on my chest and my eyes shoot wide open as I see a buck naked white skinned lady with flaming hair, a spiral horn and large white wings lying on my chest. I sit up slightly, biting through the pain in my body and take a good look at our new guest. Except for the spiral horn, large wing, pointy pony ears and flaming tail, she look like a normal curvy yet muscular girl with milk white furred skin and flaming hair. I'm suprised that her hair was warm but it doesn't burn like fire.

I look up and see Messiah and Dahlia looking unsure, I look behind them and see that the screen and couch are completely wrecked. My gaze goes to my left and I imagine a large royal bed, the blue wisps fall and a white and gold coloured bed appears before me. I pick up the sleeping beauty and gently tuck her into the bed, she's much lighter than I expected considering that if she were to be standing, I would reach up to just bellow her chest.

"Well that was unexpected," I say as I turn around to face the other two, "I guess we'll just have to wait for her to wake up."

Chapter 3. Shadows and Personas (edited)

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Velvet Room

"Come forth!" I commanded, "Jack Frost!"

Wisps from the tree started to fall and spin around, forming a small blue tornade. The tornade lights up in blue flames and takes the form of a small big headed creature with snow white skin wearing a blue jester outfit. On the hat there is a small yellow smily face and his neck ruffle had golden bells around it.

"Hee-ho! I'm Jack Frost! It's hee-hot in hee-here, ho! I'll cool it down with a blizzard!" it started saying in a cheery tone.

"Wait, before you do that." I started. "Let's have a chat."

"Hee-no talking! More playing, ho!" he exclaimed.

"Okay, let's play!" I said with a happy tone, "What do you wanna play?"

"Hee-Snowball fight, ho!"

"Great idea! Let's play!"

If you're wondering what I'm doing let me explain.
When you're summoning or making a contract with a Persona or a demon in the games, you can't just force them to follow your bidding. You have to either convince them or make them like you.
Even if they are Shadows, they are still alive and have their own desires and personalities. Jack Frost felt like a good choice to start with, since he is one of the low level shadows you encounter in most games. Plus he has a lot of potential, is easily one of the best ice personas in the games and he's Atlus's mascot so why wouldn't I want him on the team.

"Hee-hey! You're really fun to play with, I think I like yo-ho!" he suddenly said, "Me-hee think I'll stick with you! I am thou, thou art I! I'm Jack Frost, ho! Take good care of me-hee, ho!"

The book started glowing and shaking like before, it opened up and revealed the Magician arcana that was placed right next to the Lovers arcana. The book closed up, yet Jack Frost was still standing there, happily jumping around.
Messiah and Dahlia walked up to him and introduced themselves to our newest family member while I turned, sat down in my chair and started reading through the book once more.
I discovered some intresting things as I looked through it. It seems like the Le Grimoire includes certain elements from both Persona and Shin Megami Tensei. When I looked through Jack Frost's profile, it shows several different options for evolutions, mutations and fusions that he could be involve in.

"Ohhh, I'm gonna have fun with this." I said out loud showing clear excitment.

"Uhm, Master?" I heard Dahlia speak.

"Yeah?" I answer as I look up from the book.

"I think she's waking up." she said as she points towards the bed.

I stand up from my seat and make my way towards the bed. I'm not sure how long Daybreaker has been sleeping or how long I myself have been in this world. It's kinda hard to tell the time in a realm where there is a constant solar eclipse. I did take my time however looking through the book if there was anything that I've missed, for all I know I might have already been here for a day or two. I don't feel hungry or sleepy, is it because of this dimension or is it that my body doesn't need to sleep and eat like a regular person anymore? Questions for later.
I sit down at the side of the bed and turn my gaze to Daybreaker who's waking up. She sits up, rubs the crust out of her eyes and yawns.

"Good morning sleeping beauty."

She flinches and opens her eyes, staring at me with the burning inferno that is contained behind her black and golden eyes. Her brain seems to be working overtime as she has not done anything but simply stare at me akwardly, I can just imagine the Windows 10 loading screen in her head.
The bedspread that was covering her falls down from her massive chest and she seems to register how cold it is. She looks down and her face turns crimson red and her mane flares.

"Who are you?!" she shouts as she covers herself up with her arms that are barely helping, "And what are you doing in my bed!?"

I stand up, turn around, places my right hand over my chest as my left arm is behind my back and introduce myself.

"Greetings and welcome to the Velvet Room," I say as I bow my head, "My name is Minato, the Master of this dimension."

She seems caught off guard by my introduction and raises an eyebrow when I said dimension. She looks around taking in her surroundings, looking up her eyes widens when she sees that we're currently in a giant bird cage that is under a constant solar eclipse surrounded by stars and constellations that are unrecognisable to her.
She looks back and flinches ones more when she realises that we're not alone. The others had approached when they heard the shouting and where now surrounding me. Messiah stood right behind me to my right while Dahlia was sitting on my left shoulder waving at Daybreaker. She looks down and sees Jack Frost clinging to my leg like a small child, her stare seems to soften but her eyes widen when her gaze returns to me, staring with a mixture of awe and fear.

From Daybreaker's perspective she could see a sinister dark blue aura radiating from both me and Messiah showing not only our power but also that we are connected, her eyes shift to the left and then right as her fear starts to build up. The same blue aura was all around her, the Tree, the bed, the platform, the flowers, the cage and even the solar eclipse seems like its all connected to the stallion, no, entity that was standing right before her. She had never felt such overwhelming power before, this was far beyond Sombra and maybe even Discord in terms of raw magical power.

"W-What are you?" she asked.

"Like I said, I'm Minato, the Master of the Velvet Room." I answer holding a neutral tone.

"What is the Velvet Room?"

"This is the Velvet Room," I exclaimed spreading out my arms for dramatic effect, "a dimension that exist between dream and reality, mind and matter. A world that changes to the masters will and to those that can access it."

She seems to calm herself down slightly, taking in my words and thinking while looking to her left.

"You know it's kinda rude to ask someone their name and not give your own." I say with a sly tone

She blushes at her mess up, recomposes herself with a cough into her fist and introducess herself.

"I'm Daybreaker, Goddess of the Sun and monarch of Equestria." she exclaims with pride.

"Oh, so you're single!" I say catching her off guard and her bravado dropping.
"Never expected her to be this bashful." I think to myself.

She recomposes herself, though her blush remains.
"May I ask who or what those are?" she points towards the others.

"These are my Personas, former Shadows or suppress thoughts and desires given physical form." I explain like professional. "I thought that you would know that since you're the same and were being swarmed by others like them in your fight with your counterpart."

She looks at me shocked and confused, stands up while holding the bedsheets to cover herself and looks at me furious.

"What do mean I'm the same as them and those demons that were attacking my subjects!?" she shouts as her mane flares, "I'm a Goddess for Faust's sake, and those things were nothing more than shapeless abominations created from dark magic!"

"Calm down, there is no reason to raise your beautiful voice," I calmly explain, "the demons as you where calling them are actuelly Shadows. Suppressed emotions, thoughts and desires given a physical form based on the parts that their owner rejects about themselves."

I stare her in the eyes with an emotionless expression, not even bothered by the heat radiating from her body.

"You are Princess Celestia's Shadow, you are what she sees as wrong about herself. You were given a physical form, that is based on her rejected desires and thoughts, where you not?"

She seems conflicted but doesn't flat out reject my words. Her hair stops flaring as she takes a deep breath to calm herself down, she puts on a unsure and sad expression.

"So what," she starts with a low tone, "Am I not real? Am I just a shadow of a Princess that will never see the light of day."

"I never said that. You are just as real as these guys and more. The fact that you're here not only proves your power but also that you have incredible potential."

"How exactly did I arrive here?" She asked still with a low tone.

"During your battle with Celestia when you attempted a final attack towards her, Celestia used some sort of spell which released a blinding light and launched you through that screen over there, crash into me and wreck my new couch." I explain as I point towards the destruction.

As I explain the situation to Daybreaker, something clicks within my head and my left eye begins to glow in a golden colour. As it glows I start to see several blue smoke like auras surrounding me that connected me to my Personas. I look back towards Daybreaker, who takes a defensive stance when she sees my eye. I notice something odd about her aura, her aura is a gold colour and is more like fire rather than smoke, there is also a mix of black within the fire that is similar to a Shadows aura. Just then, information that I'm not sure why I knew entered my mind and a spoke out loud.

"It seems like whatever Celestia did to you completely separated you from her and you became your own being. You're still technically a Shadow but you seem to be... more solid, trained and controlled than the others." I explain.

I take in my own words together with Daybreaker and start to theories what this means.
Is Daybreaker more similar to entities like Teddie and Morgana from P4 and P5 than other Shadows, that could explain why she still looks similar to Celestia instead of taking a more monstrous and grotesque appearance.
But what does that make Nightmare Moon in that case? Does it also mean that Celestia has lost her ability to become a Persona user? Can Equestrians even become Persona users?
Questions for another day.

"Come let's get you some clothes." I turn and begin to walk as a large white and gold wardrobe starts to form from the tree.
"Or would you like to remain naked?" I said with a teasing tone.

I'm met with an angry and flustered glare from Daybreaker as I look back, the bedsheets she was using as cover caught fire and she begins fumble in an attempt to cover herself, her face blushing bright red from embarassment.

"I think I'm gonna enjoy her company." I think to myself.

I'm not sure how much time has past since Daybreaker arrived here. Seriously, it's impossible to tell the time in this place.
Me and Daybreaker are currently sitting around the table under tree crown and drinking tea, I'm not sure were the tea came from, it just seemed like it was already there. Most like it has something to do with me being the Master of this place. Daybreaker is wearing a white and gold dress, or is it black and blue? Her shoulders are completely revealed and the dress goes down to her knees.
Messiah and Jack Frost are sitting on the ground next to the table playing chess while Dahlia is watching and eating some chocolate chip cookies.
Daybreaker has finally calmed down after what I can only guess was hours of distrust and mental debate. After I explained to her that we can't leave this place because the other side of the door has not yet manifested in Equestria, she seems to calm herself down and accept the situation as her punishment for losing control like her sister.

I asked Daybreaker about the situation outside in Equestria and it's a lot more different than I thought. Apparently around 300 or so years after Nightmare Moon aka Princess Luna's banishment, the Gates to Tartarus where destroyed by some unknown force and the Shadows started appearing in numerous places around Equestria, mostly in places like the Badlands, Everfree Forest, Hollow Shades, Peaks of Peril and just outside Tartarus. There were still however several times with Shadows attacking civilians around villages. It started off small with Shadows not being that powerful and considered nothing more than pests, but as of late the attacks have become more frequent and the Shadows have not only grown in numbers but also in strength and size.

A large army of Shadows were apparently marching towards the still in development Canterlot. Luckely Celestia had contacted the dragons, griffins and yaks who where also having trouble with the Shadows, things where looking good as the army was being pushed back. But Celestia lost control when one weird looking Shadow showed up and released Daybreaker. What followed was Celestia attacking Daybreaker thinking that she was with the Shadows and everything spiraled out of control. What we saw on the screen was the end of a long and chaotic battle.

"What do mean with the Shadow being weird looking?" I asked with raised eyebrow.

Daybreaker takes a sip from her tea and sighs in bliss before she answers me.

"I'm not sure how I should explain it," she sounded unsure, "It wasn't so much its appearance but more the atmosphere it was giving its surroundings. While most Shadows where releasing a Blood Red aura with black lines and giving off a feeling of fear, anger, sorrow and dread. The weird one gave off a more purple and violet coloured aura that was almost calming, but not a feeling of safety as it was more a feeling of acceptance."

"Well that's not creepy at all." I started jokingly. "So far the Shadows I've seen where similar to ones where I'm from. But that doesn't sound familiar at all. It's not uncommon for Shadows to release other Shadows from there prison inside the psyche, but the way you described its aura is something to be worried about."

"Speaking of surroundings," she looks to her left towards Messiah, Jack Frost and Dahlia, "you have yet to explain to me what those are, you told me that they are called Personas but didn't really give me a full explanation."

"Personas are technically speaking, Shadows that have been accepted. By accepting ones shadow, one can experience an awakening to their hidden power. Personas are referred to as a "mask" for an individual to use in order to face hardship. While Shadows are malevolent manifestations of one's inner thoughts, a Persona is a manifestation of the same feelings but tamed and trained."

She stares at me in amazment over the power and knowledge I explained to her, completely invested like a child.

"A persona is summoned through an individuals Arcana, a card that represents them as a person. While most people are only capable of holding one Persona that grows alongside them, I possess a special card known as the Wild Card, it allows me to form contracts with Shadows and turn them into Personas that I can use."

"So does that mean anyone can have a Persona?" Daybreaker asked with small sign excitement.

"Not everyone, but most of the time it has to do with their mental and emotional strength. Celestia most likely has lost her ability to access her Persona since she completely broke the bond you shared. You however should be able to access a Persona."

"What? But I'm a Shadow aren't I?"

"And more." I point out. "While my knowledge about this subject is a bit limited, there have been situations similar to yours were a shadow has become its own being. Those Shadows would eventually also suppress their thoughts and desires but be much more accepting towards releasing them and have an easier time unlocking their Personas."

She looks down and seems to be deep in thought, nothing is said for what feels like forever. I take a couple of sips from my tea while Jack Frost is happily cheering over his victory in chess against Messiah.
How did that snowman beat an entity that's suppose to bring Judgement in chess?

"How do I do it?"

I was brought out of my thoughts by a sudden question from our beloved Sun Goddess.

"Hm?" was my answer.

"How do I awaken my Persona?" she asked showing clear intressed. "If I posses power that I have yet unlocked, I want it. How do I do it?"

"That is a difficult question to answer." I start unsure, "Usually it's different for everyone, I mean what I rejected about myself was my own Death and before I knew I had a new life and a Persona. But most of the time it has to do with accepting that you have flaws and rejecting what the world sees as wrong."

She seems deep in thought again unsure on what to think about what I had just told her. Being the fact that Daybreaker is Celestia wrath, pride and arrogance incarnate makes it difficult for her to accept the fact that she is flawed, since most ponies throughout her life have treated her and her sister like they're Goddesses, it makes it kinda hard to admit that you're not one.

"Maybe proof is what you need in order to awaken."

Daybreakers thoughts are broken by Minato, who is now standing up and calls over Messiah.

"Proof?" she raised an eyebrow, "Proof of what?"

"How flawed and outclassed you are," Minato and Messiahs bodies flare with blue energy, "Megidolaon"

A blue orb forms in Messiah's right hand and launches the attack towards Daybreaker at point blank.
Daybreaker reacts fast and puts up a barrier but fails to make it strong enough as it shatters from the Almighty attack. Daybreaker and Minato are sent flying threw the air as the platform expands and the Tree grows taller so the crown doesn't get damaged from the battle.
While Daybreaker keeps rolling on the ground failing to stop herself, Minato swiftly rolls and then slows down with a stomp to grown.

"Hehe, I really have stopped being human." he thinks to himself before summoning the knuckle dusters Gorodias and dashes forward towards Daybreaker.

Minatos speed, strength and durability has greatly improved because of his connection with Messiah, not only are his stats incredibly high but the amount of resistances he possesses makes him near indestructible. Having resistance to Fire, Ice, Electricity, Wind, Psy and Nuclear, but he also reflects the Bless element. His only flaw is that he has no resistance to Physical and Gun attacks and he's also weak to the Curse element.

As Minato dashes towards Daybreaker, Messiah charges up another Megidolaon and Daybreaker finally stops herself and gets back on her feet. She realises her situation and launches a large fireball that collides with the Megidolaon. Before it exploded however, Minato went low, ran under the fire ball and delivered a powerful blow to Daybreakers abdomen. The punch was made more powerful thanks to the boost from the explosion that went off behind Minato.
Both Minato and Daybreaker fly threw the air with Messiah not far behind. Daybreaker pushes Minato back, does a front flipp and delivers a powerful axekick towards Minato. Even with his high endurance,strength and the fact he was crossing his arms to block the hit, his lack of resistance to physical attacks made him feel the pain of both his arms breaking. He was launched towards the ground and impacted, creating a large crater.

Daybreaker smiles at her small victory and fails to notice the glowing blue orb to her left. As she looks towards Messiah, she notices that both his arms are swollen. The impact that was delivered onto Minato had broken his arms, but his mental strength and pain tolerance allowed Messiah to keep charging his attack. With a flick of his wrist the orb was launched and impacted against Daybreaker before blowing up and giving the sky a blue sun.

Daybreaker crashes down creating a large crater bigger than Minato's. She crawls out from the crater and stands up, her clothes shredded and herself completely worn out. She looks towards Minato and sees that he isn't doing much better, her attack had broken both of his arms, he barely managed to crawl out of his crater, blood dripping down from his forehead and one of his ankles seems twisted.
Daybreaker sees this as her victory, despite the fact that he caught her by suprise, she was still physically stronger than him and had manage to do more damage with a single attack than he had managed to do with multiple.
Messiah lands next to Minato and uses "Oratorio". Minato's body snaps and cracks as the bones and muscles are being put back in place. From an outside perspective the display looks incredibly painful but Minato felt nothing as the bones in his arms are being restored.

Seeing this, Daybreaker is realising the huge problem she is facing. The fact that she is physically stronger doesn't matter if he has such powerful healing magic at his disposal, he'll eventually overwhelm her and take her out with one of those attacks. If she wants to defeat him she'll need to end him with one attack.
Charging her magic into her horn and her mane flaring from the increasing power, the attack she's charging was used only ones in the past by Celestia, it was an attack that could vaporise mountains and take out entire armies. With the combined force of both fire magic, lightning magic and holy magic, it creates a powerful blast that is hotter than the surface of the sun, leveling entire forests, turning beaches into glass and creating the Badlands.
It was given the name,
The Light that Burns the Sky

Dahlia and Jack Frost had run over to Minato to see if he was okay, but their group soon turns their eyes towards Daybreaker who burns in white fire and launches a gigantic yellow sparking sun towards them.
While the two small ones shake in fear as they hug eachother, Minato's eyes glows and analyses the attack. At first he was worried, but that worry quickly vanished when he realised what elements where involved in the attack. He puts himself in front of Dahlia and Jack Frost while Messiah stands in front of him.
A little fun fact about the element Bless, apparently it is considered the same as Light, Expel and Holy, which means that they follow the same rules.

As the burning ball of death was about to make impact with Messiah, his eyes flash yellow for a second and the ball bounced off him like a rubber ball bouncing off a floor.
Daybreaker stares wide eyed at what just happened as her own attack is coming right back at her. Having spent to much energy on the attack she is now too tired too dodge and can do nothing but watch as the attack flies towards her.

She freezes as she experiences something she never thought she would, her long life flashing before her eyes. Memories from so long ago that she had almost forgotten about them. Her mother, Starswirls training, her multiple fights with Luna, all these memories that are... not hers.
Her situation finally sinks in, this is her flaw, these aren't her memories, but Celestia's. She has now become her own being and she is wasting it away by imagining herself on a throne that someone else has already taken. She isn't a Goddess, she isn't Perfect, she is the Shadow of a Goddess, a Goddess that rejected her.
But these memories still hold value, memories and lessons that Celestia has probably forgotten, things she learned from both her teacher and her mother. Dreams that she has long forgotten and given up on.
But the thing is that, it was Celestia that gave up on these dreams, not Daybreaker, she never gave up. Tears evaporate from her cheeks because of the heat as she begins to cry and laugh at herself.

"Hahaha, I guess I really am flawed," she cries to herself, "dreams and lessons long forgotten, and I call myself a Goddess, as well as Queen despite not being married. My wish of becoming a great mother and a wife will never be achieved, even after having lived for a thousand years I'm still a virgin."

The attack has almost reached her and she closes her eyes.

"But you know what, that's okay. Even if I'm not perfect, even if I'm not a goddess. All of it, is okay. Because I don't have to prove myself to anyone but myself."

... ... ...
"Indeed you don't."

Daybreakers eyes opens wide as she sees three black arms with white hands and golden rings around their wrists, blocking the attack with ease and holding it in place. She slowly turns her head to the left and sees a towering figure with ten black arms, white hands and golden rings on each one. It was wearing a red and white dress with a golden skirt that went down to just before its knees. Its long black and white legs had hooves instead of feet, with high heels that looked like detached mechanical hands holding its heels. On its chest was another pair of detached hands groping its chest gently and on its head was a third pair holding the top of its head shaping into a wierd crown. Its face was snow white with a black face mask covering its mouth and nose, the top of its head was rose red. In the center of its forehead was a small black gem, and its eyes had a black sclera and glowing golden pupils.

"I am thou, thou art I." it began, "I am Durga. My duty is to rend asunder the evil that threatens the world...
Know that your destiny is nothing less than this."

With a snap from her fingers with three of her hands, Durga dispelled the attack causing it to turn into nothing but small sparks of fire and electricity.
Everyone stares wide eyed at Durgas towering figure before she erupts in blue flames and turn into a card representing the Empress arcana. Daybreaker holds out her hand and lets the card slowly float to her palm.

"WOHO!"

She looks up and sees Minato, Messiah, Dahlia and Jack Frost clapping their hands and smiling widely as they approach her.

"Congratulations! You've become a Persona user!" Minato exclaimed happily, "To think that your Arcana was the Empress, I thought for sure that it would be the Sun but I guess the Empress makes more sense. It does represent mothers, prosperity, creativity, sexuality, abundance, fertility, protection, and comfort, which fits both you and Celestia perfectly."

Everyone is then left speechless as Daybreaker dashes forward and pulls Minato into a hug, smiling widely and with tears stream down from her eyes.

"Thank you," she cries, "Thank you for helping me remember what I had long since forgotten."

Minato returns the hug and says with a comforting tone.

"You're welcome Day, you're welcome."

Chapter 4. Arcanas (edited)

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Velvet Room

"Minato?" Daybreaker asked with a testing hint of excitement in her voice.

"Yeah Day?" I answered curious.

"Oh nothing, just wanted to test something." she answered with a giggle.

"Ooookay." I answered unsure.

Daybreaker has really opened up to me and we've gotten much closer... A little too close maybe. Right now, me and her are relaxing in a newly formed sofa I created, it's in the same place as the last one and looks almost identical. I'm currently looking through the Le Grimoire, looking over the amount of skills that I can place on my Persona. Let me just say that there's a lot to work with here. Daybreaker is leaning towards me, her chest pressing against my right shoulder. Is she doing that on purpose or is she just oblivious?

From what I've learned from her about Celestia's past and childhood, it seems at this point in time neither her nor Celestia has had anypony they consider a friend, or at least someone they consider a true friend.
The idea of having someone that she can rely on or having someone be there for her seems to really make her happy.

"Minato?" Daybreaker said once again.

"What's up Day?"

"*giggle* Oh nothing." She answered with a sly tone.

Okay, now it's starting to get creepy. But I guess I can't be too mad at her, she's probably still not over about what happened to her sister.
She seems to really like the nickname I gave her. Is this girl really the darker half of Celestia?

"Hey Minato," she suddenly asked with a clear change in tone, "I've been wondering about something? Earlier when you explained to me what a Persona is you also mention something called a Arcana. What exactly is that?"

"Hmmm, I'll try," I answer while thinking what to say, "An Arcana is... a card that represents a person but also part of a journey that is the growth of a person. Specifically the Arcanas that allow us to summon Personas are the Major Arcanas of the traditional Tarot Card deck."

I reach into my pocket and pull out the Tarot Cards I brought with me to the convention. I start shuffling through the cards and bring out the 22 major Arcanas and put them on the coffe table that is in front of the sofa.

"In total there are 78 cards in a Tarot deck, but the major arcanas are what determines an individuals Persona. They are numbered as 0 - 21 and are, in order: the Fool, Magician, Priestess, Empress, Emperor, Hierophant, Lovers, Chariot, Justice, Hermit, Fortune, Strength, Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, Devil, Tower, Star, Moon, Sun, Judgement and the World."

As I read them all out, the cards are enveloped in a blue aura and each card glows brighter when I say their name. I then open the Le Grimoire and Seven additional cards float out from the book in a blue aura.

"There are however more than these Arcanas, but they are not in the original Tarot deck and share the same number as some of the other cards. They are: the Jester, Councillor, Apostle, Hunger, Aeon, Universe, Faith and Hope. The Jester shares the number 0 with the Fool, the Councillor the number 1 with the Magician, the Apostle the number 5 with the Hierophant, Hunger the number 11 with Strength, Aeon the number 20 with Judgement, the Universe the number 21 with the World and lastly Faith and Hope are without numbers.

All the cards starts to float and place themselves in order on the table, from top left to bottom right, with Faith and Hope being last because they don't have a number. I reach out with my right hand and pick up the Empress Arcana in order to show it to Daybreaker.

"Your Arcana is the Empress, it represents mothers, prosperity, creativity, sexuality, abundance, fertility, protection and comfort. The Arcanas don't have to be 100% accurate, they usually represent the most outstanding part about an individual, whether or not it is something that the individual shows or keeps hidden from the outside world doesn't matter. The Persona that is born from the Arcana usually shares the name with a historical, mythological or folklore entity that best fit in with the Arcana. Your Persona Durga, is based on the Hindu goddess of motherhood and battle, which I think fits you perfectly with the ferocity and strength you show in combat, as well as the gentle and loving side you're showing right now."

She blushes at my last comment, but the curiosity in her face doesn't seem to leave. She still has something that she's hiding.

"Then what is your Arcana?" she asked.

Like before, information that I'm not sure of why I knew enter my head and I reach out with my left hand towards the table. Three cards floats from the table and stay floating above my hand. My right hand then opens up and one of the cards float from my left hand to the right.

"As the bearer of the Wild Card, I can not only wield more than one Persona, but my Arcana can also change as I grow in power. At first my Arcana was the Fool, it represents innocence, divine inspiration, madness, freedom, spontaneity, inexperience, chaos and creativity. It mostly symbolised my oblivious and grey world view, as well as my inability to find true joy in what I do."

The Fool Arcana returned to my left hand and changed place with the Death Arcana.

"When reality finally decided to catch up to me, I was put in a situation of unavoidable doom, which made me change into the Death Arcana. This card is without a doubt the most misunderstood one out of all the Arcanas. While it is associated with foreboding and doom, the Death Arcana also symbolizes metamorphosis and deep change, regeneration and cycles. In other words, it not only represented my fate, but also that something big was waiting for me in the future."

A vision flashed before me, showing me a tall dark figure wearing a dark midnight blue dress cloak, white long sleeved gloves and silver helmet with a lower jaw attached, giving the appearance of a gaping mouth. The figure was covered in chains, kneeling down as if it was sealed away and surrounded by eight small coffins, similar to the ones Messiah has. It also had a sheathed sword attached to it's left hip.
The figure raised its head and stared at me with its hollow eyes, as we where surrounded by darkness. The figure didn't say anything nor did it try to move, but it felt like I recieved a message despite the fact that no words were spoken.

"Soon my old friend, soon." I say to figure.

It lowers its head and goes back to its long slumber. I'm not sure how to explain it, but it felt like I've known him for a long time. Even longer than Messiah.

"Minato?" Daybreaker says worried, "Are you okay?"

Reality returns to me and I see Daybreaker facing me with clear worry in her eyes. I shake my head and answer.

"Yeah I'm fine," I say with a sigh, "just some old and unpleasant memories."

I return my gaze to the cards and the Death Arcana swaps places with the Judgement Arcana.

"My current Arcana is Judgement, it is associated with realizing one's calling, gaining a deep understanding of life and a feeling of acceptance and absolution. It also represents a balance between light and darkness. It manifested when I came to accept my fate and invite whatever change was waiting for me, as well as my will to escape from the old world and change myself. It is the Arcana that Messiah was born from."

Messiah and the others walk up to us with clear interest over my explaination.

"The term messiah is prominent within many of the world's religions. A messiah is regarded as a savior of mortals, who would bring them salvation near the end of days, although opinions between who the term messiah refers to differs between religions."

All the cards float up and return to the Le Grimoire and the book closes itself. I pick up the Tarot cards and put them back into my left chest pocket. I pick up the book and start to flip through it.

"Do you wanna see when I summon a new Persona?" I asked Daybreaker.

"Sure, I'm actuelly curious to see how it works." she answers with an intrested tone.

I start to flip through the book and search for any low level Persona. The reason I'm still sticking with low level ones is because I wanna get a clear understanding on how it works before I start going after the high leveled ones.

"Do you guy's have any suggestions or wishes?" I turn my gaze towards the others.

"Can you make it a female one?" Dahlia asked,"I would like to have a girlfriend to talk to."

"He-Oh-Oh!" Jack Frost exclaims with a raised hand, "Make it someone who's fun to play with, ho!"

A female who's fun to play with... Ah yes of course!

"Come forth!" I commanded, "Nekomata!"

Wisps from the tree started to fall and spin around, forming a small blue tornade. The tornade lights up in blue flames and takes the form of a slender feminine figure, her entire body was covered in skin tight black fabric with a snow white fur coat on covering her upper body and arms. Her hands have sharp claws and she has a white cat like tail. She has a black face mask covering her mouth and nose, the mask an opening for the mouth and has white lines on it, looking like cat whiskers. Her hair was a light brown and goes down to her shoulders and she has two big cat like ears instead of human ones. Her eyes were a golden amber like colour, looking like the eyes of a cat.

She goes down on all four and crawls towards me like a cat, she looks at me with clear curiousity.

"Are you Nekomata's soul mate, meow?" she ask with a head tilt.

"Well, uhhh." was all I could muster because I was not ready for that question.

"Hmmm," she analysis me with deep interest, "*gasp* We have the same eyes, meow!!"

"Oof!" I say as Nekomata pounces on me.

I'm laying on my back with Nekomata sitting on top of my stomach. Her legs to my side and both her hands on my chest. She stares down at me with a huge grin on her face.

"I like you, mew! Teehee! I'll be your Purrsona!" she says as she's snuggling up to and purrs loudly.

Both her and I are covered in a blue glow and the book that is now laying to my right on the floor flips open, showing Nekomata's card.

"Well, that was easy." I say as pet the overgrown kitty.
"Hey! That tickles!" I chuckle as Nekomata starts liking my left cheek.

A sudden feeling of danger accompanied with an increase in temperature makes itself present. I tilt my head and look up to see Daybreaker looking really mad with her mane flaring. Dahlia is next to her on her left, sparking with Electicity and looking equally mad. I look behind them and see Messiah and Jack Frost hiding behind the sofa and shaking in fear.
Oh no, not this cliché.

"Day, calm down." I say with a shaky voice, "She's just being friendly."

Durga spawns behind Daybreaker with all ten of her arms blazing with fire.

"I regret nothing!" I shout before I'm overpowered by the sound of Fire and Lightning.

KRAKOOM!!!

Thank the Lord for Resist and Oratorio! Durga hits hard!
Not only does she have a unique skill called Thunder Inferno, that deals severe Fire damage and has a medium chance to Shock the opponent. But she has a trait called Solar Tyrant, which increases the damage of her magic based attacks by 50%. Basically it's her own version of Satanael's trait Pagan Allure. She also absorbs Fire, she immune to Nuke and Bless, resists Curse and is weak to Ice. Over all, she's a pretty solid Persona that fits Daybreaker perfectly.

Currently I'm sitting on the couch suffering from both severe burn damage and slowly recovering from being paralyzed by the Shock ailment. Jack Frost is being carried by Messiah, who's standing behind me, and holds his cold hand on me to help with the burn while Messiah uses Oratorio. Since I currently have no Persona that can remove Ailments, all I can really do is slowly let the Shock ailment heal itself.

"I'm sorry..." I hear the saddened voice of Daybreaker, "I went to far, it wasn't your fault."

"I'm sorry too, master." Dahlia says, feeling equally guilty.

Despite the fact that my entire body is paralyzed, I can still talk just fine. With some effort of course.

"Don't worry," I say with a voice like a disappointed parent, "I'm not mad, just be careful next time. You're both much stronger than you realise and could very easily hurt someone. Now give me a hug."

They both smile and approach to hug me, only to pull back from a sudden feeling of shocking pain and they both let out a feminine "Yeowch!"

"First lesson about Status Ailments, the Shock ailment is contagious." I say with a smirk as both of them are now also suffering from the Shock ailment, but not on the same level as me, they can still move with some effort.

After we all manage to recover from the "Shocking" situation and everyone finished introducing themselves to Nekomata, we decided to chill in the sofa and look at the current situation in Equestria.
I'm sitting in the middle of the couch, with Day to my right hugging Jack Frost like a plush as he's sitting in her lap, Nekomata on my left, Dahlia on my lap and Messiah standing behind the sofa.

"Let's see how Equestria has recovered from their recent Shadow attack." I say as I click on the controller in my hand.

The screen turns on and shows an overworld view of Equestria, beautiful land scapes with mountains, field and forests. You could see multiple villages, both that seem to have been recently built and some still under construction. Surrounding the villages where big walls made from logs, most likely to keep out the Shadows. Lastly in the distant you could see Canterlot mountain and its kingdom close to completion and... no sign of any recent Shadow attacks?

"Hey Day, is it possible for Equestria to recover this fast from a large scale invasion?" I ask with slight worry in my tone.

"No," she answered showing clear confusion over what she's seeing, "there's no way Celestia and the rest of Equestria could possibly recover this fast from that invasion. More than that, the construction of Canterlot Castle is almost done, it was suppose to be at least six months or so before it was finished."

"But what does all this mean, mew?" Nekomata asked.

I stop and think for a second before, "Hey Dahlia?" I ask and Dahlia looks up to me, "How long has it been since Day arrived here?"

"Hmmm, if my internal clock is correct along with the time she was asleep," Dahlia says with deep concentration, "around 4 days."

"IT'S ALREADY BEEN FOUR DAYS!!!" I shout in complete shock scaring the ones around me.

This can't be good, on one hand this means that I won't be stuck in here for as long as I first thought. On the other hand this means I have less time than I thought to learn about my powers and master them. Almost a week has already gone by and I have barely scatched the surface of the Le Grimoire. What have I been doing?
I need to run several test like: How does buffs work? How do debuffs work? How do ailments work? How do weaknesses work? How do critical hits work? How do I fuse Personas? How do I give them new skills? How do I give them different traits? How much difference does a Personas stats make and can I increase them even if the Persona is already max leveled?

"Let's see," I place my hand to my chin and scratch it as I think, "if 4 days is equal to 6 months out there, that would mean that the amount of time we will be spending in here is..."

Everyone stares at me with anticipation, waiting for me to reveal the result that my amazing brain has calculated.

"I have no idea!"

Or not. Math was never my strong suit.
Everyone grunts in dissapointment before Daybreaker shakes her head and says.

"So I guess that means we won't be stuck in here for as long as we first thought. That's good right."

"Yeah, but it also means that we have less time to both learn and master all of our new powers." I explain, "Even then, we're still going to be stuck in here for at least a couple or so years, so it's not like we're running out of time."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Day says as she scratches her head. "We should probably get the hang of it as soon as possible just to be safe."

"Right you are my dear," I say with a snap of my fingers, "so let's get to training."

It has been some time since we last checked on Equestria and the amount of Personas I've summoned have increased as well. I've pretty much given up on counting how much time has actuelly past and I'm just not gonna think about it.
When it came to giving a Persona a new skill, you just had to place the card that represented the skill on top of the card that represented the Persona. Skills take the appearance of Skill Cards that have an icon on them that shows the Element or Catagory that the skill within the card represent.

When it came to changing traits, I had to summon a Persona that had the trait I wanted and then sacrifice the Persona as energy for the other Persona. At first I was pretty worried about this but it seems like even if a Persona is sacrificed, the contract I had with the Persona can't be broken, so I can just summon them again if I need to.

I also discovered during that time that I can expand the flower field as well as change it. The area of the Velvet Room has gotten some new additions, the most obvious being the Roman-like pillars placed around in the flower field so that they surround the platform and the large pond that I added within the flower field. I always liked water and having a pond gives a feeling of peace and tranquility. The pond has a smaller version of the Moonlight Tree in the middle of the lake, Day and I decided that the tree needed a name and that's what we came up with. Day seems to really like the name.

Four of my new Personas have decided to make the pond their territory, those being the Four Mitamas. The Mitamas all look like curved, comma-shaped beads, each one being a different colour and pointing in a different direction.
Saki Mitama is Yellow and has an expression that gives off a feeling of happiness and love,

Ara Mitama is red and has an expression that gives off a feeling of frustration and bravery,

Kusi Mitama is a dark grey colour and has an expression that gives off wonder and wisdom,

lastly is Nigi Mitama who's light blue and has a expression that gives off a feeling of peace.

Each of the Mitamas are just floating around above the water, spinning and chasing eachother.

There is a small open area on the field big enough for a large blanket to be laid out right next to the pond. Currently I'm sitting on the blanket reading through the book with Nekomata resting her head on my lap and Orthrus laying down to my left.
Orthrus is a Persona I summoned recently and he's a good boy. He looks like a large two headed dog with golden brown fur, a cerulean coloured lion-like mane and a purple snake-like tail.

Over by the platform I can hear Daybreaker training with two of my other Personas, those being Matador and Shiki-Ouji. Matador wears a green spanish matador uniform with golden markings, his head is just a white human skull with a green montera hat on it. In his right hand he has a red cape and in his left a curved tuck sword.

Shiki-Ouji looks like a large horned red and white humanoid made up of origami paper, he has a star on the center of his forehead and the left side of his front is covered with ancient Japanese.

Despite the fact that Day and Durga have gotten a lot stronger, Matador and Shiki-Ouji are no joke. They are easily among the strongest lower mid-tier Personas with Matadors insane speed and swift attacks and Shiki-Oujis near indestructable body and hard hitting physical and Psy elemental attacks.

As I'm relaxing and just taking in the feeling of perfect balance in my surroundings, Orthrus suddenly stands up and starts growling at the pond.

"What's wrong boy?" I ask the big dog as Nekomata is starting to wake up.

"Master! Master!" I hear a bunch of voices shout from the lake.

I turn my head towards the lake and see the Mitamas floating above a part of the lake that's bubbling and giving off light.

"There is something coming out of the pond!" Ara Mitama shouts in panic.

Orthrus starts barking and growling at the bubbles and Nekomata gets on all four and hisses. I'm starting to get a bad feeling.
The light that's being released from the lake glows brighter and suddenly, the water of the pond erupts and throws out three figures out of the lake. The free figures are flying through the air, coming straight towards me and impacts with a loud "OOOFF!"
I really need to learn how to dodge.

I come back to the waking world with my entire body aching with pain, as well as a sudden feeling of Dejá Vu. I look to what's lying on top of me this time and see three beautiful girls, that look oddly familiar.

The one in the middle lying on top of me, has pale apple green skin with light brilliant golden scales covering some parts of her. Her hair is Luminous vivid orange with brilliant yellow streaks, her hair is also incredibly poofy.
The one to my right has pale, light grayish fuchsia colour skin with light violet scales. Her hair is purple with light brilliant aquamarine streaks, her hair is also tide up in twin tails.
The third one lying to my left has archtic bluish white skin with light cerulean scales. Her hair is light archtic blue with moderate persian blue stripes. Her hair is up in a pony tail.
All three of them are covered with dirt and torn apart clothing, looking like they haven't been cleaned up in months.

"Why is it that people can get in here in every way except the door?" I asked no one in particular.

Chapter 5. Safehaven

View Online

Somewhere in Europe

Year 1611

"I hereby sentence the three of you to trial by the Swimming Test!" the Judge brought down his gavel as the villagers cheered "Judge the witches! Judge the witches!"

"How did we end up like this?" the oldest of the trio thought in her mind. "How did we end up here? It began with the three of us simply seeking for a place to be accepted and be admired for our music. When we didn't get that, we used the power of the Siren Hearts to spread strife throughout Equestria and then Starswirl and those arrogant Pillars showed up and sent us to this cursed world."

The trio that was being lead out of the church towards a deep river that wasn't to far away, were accused of being witches. This accusation had been brought to them because one poor kid had attempted to steal their necklaces, only to receive a magic induced shock from the accessory
In this grey and sad era in human history that was known as the Witch Hunts, women were randomly accused of using the art of witchcraft. Whether it was because they possessed medical knowledge that others didn't or because they had a different opinion, people always found a way to abuse this overly paranoid era. The paranoia that had spread through out Europe and America was simply to much for logic to be considered an option, and while the church didn't hold as much power as it did in the past, it still affected most humans way of thinking, because of religion.

Rowboats had already been prepared for the trial, one boat for each of the women. Accompanied by two men each, one was rowing the boat, while the other was holding the rope that was tied around the sirens in human forms, limiting their movement.
The youngest had started crying and begging, the second oldest had a look of disbelief and inability to accept reality, the last and oldest of the sisters had a look of guilt. Her mind was filled with thoughts and questions like: "What did I do wrong? Where and when did I mess up?" and "Could this have been avoided?"

She was losing hope, all of them were losing hope, having been transformed into humans had made it so they had lost many abilities that they possessed as sirens, most important being their ability to swim and breath under water. They knew what this trial was, they knew how unfair and illogical it was. If they swam or floated, they would be sentenced as witches and be either hanged or burned at the stake. If they sank, then they were innocent, but most of the time people that went through this trial would die by drowning before they could be pulled out of the water. The odds of surviving this trial was low, unfairly low. If they didn't drown or get executed, then they would still have to live in this grey world void of magic. Their was no way they were ever getting home, if the world they came from could even be considered a home.

Forming a circle, each of the boats were above the deepest parts of the river and preparing to push the innocent women below the surface. The younger two's gazes met the oldest, hoping that their leader and older sister had a way out of this, but the moment they saw the eyes that had lost all hope and given up, they knew this was it. Closing their eyes and preparing for what was coming, the sisters were pushed and began to sink down the river.
As she began to lose air and darkness was covering her vision, Adagio Dazzle found an odd sense of irony in this situation.

"A siren dying by drowning," she thought to herself, "what a stupid way for it to end."

As she closed her eyes and bubbles left her mouth, neither she or her sisters could see the blue flames that began to surround and consume their bodies.

Velvet Room

"What happened? Am I dead? Is this the afterlife?" the oldest siren thought as she was waking up.
"Hmhp, this bed is really comfortable... ... ... WAIT! A BED!"

As Adagio Dazzle's eyes shoot open from shock and realisation, the first thing she sees is a beautiful blue flower covered tree crown that seems to be glowing. The second is the beautiful night sky with a solar eclipse that is above a silver caged ceiling above the tree crown. It wasn't until she had shaken herself from her amazement after seeing this beautiful sight, that it finally registered in her mind that she was still alive and lying in an extremely comfortable bed.
She rubbed the crust out of her eyes and sat up slighty to take in her surroundings, she's lying in a royal sized gold and blue bed with a comfortable warm blanket and plenty of gold and blue colored pillows for maximum comfort. Aria Blaze is lying to her right and Sonata Dusk is lying to her left with a slight drole in her mouth, it also just registered in her mind that they are back in their siren forms. Specifically their land-siren forms, with scales on only certain parts of their bodies and normal pony-like ears and tails instead of their normally fin-like ears and tails that they have in their water-siren forms.

"Barong, Rangda, are you two ready?" a young male voice sounded from her left.

Adagio turns her head towards the sound and what she sees leaves her both shocked and scared, as much as it leaves her confused and curious. She sees a young human male with blond hair, golden eyes that seems to glow, wearing a blue suit. Right next to him is a tall Alicorn with white fur skin, a flaming mane, amber eyes with dark sclera, wearing a white and golden dress.
In front of both of them is a bizarre panther-like creature with large amber eyes, a green beard and purple mane. It wears a large bizarre looking crown on top of its head and its body is covered with long white fur and it possesses a silver armored tail with blue fur at the end.

The second figure infront of them, looks like a red skinned floating doll-like female. Instead of having legs it has weard looking bead chains with pickaxe heads at the end of them, she has a long red and yellow cloth piece hanging from the golden demon-looking head on her waist. She has a extremely large pitch black mane that seems to cover most of her body, except for her face, chest and arms. Her eyes are completely white, she has a green bambu piece in her mouth and she wears small crescent shaped blades as ear rings. But the most uncomforable thing about her would be her incredibly long finger nails.

"I am ready whenever you are, Master." the panther says with a bow.

"My body is my offering to you, Master." the bizarre doll said with enthusiasm.

The other two sirens wakes up because of the noise and they follow the gaze of their older sister to take in the bizarre sight.

"Then without further ado," the young man begins holding a book that flips open in his hand, "I sacrifice Barong of the Emperor arcana and Rangda of the Empress arcana!"

Both creatures burst in blue fire and transformed into two cards, both float into the air and spins around eachother faster and faster until they collide in a bright blue light.
Where it once stood two bizarre looking creatures now stands a towering blue skinned humanoid with four arms and a emerald green third eye in its forehead. It had long dark hair tied up to a pony tail with a golden ring and golden earrings that looked like sea shells. Its neck and shoulders were covered with necklaces, several made of gold, pearls and red jewelry. Around its waist was an animal pelt that seemed to be made from a tigers fur, a green cloth was tied around the waist to keep the pelt in place and another white peace of fabric was used as a scarf. In its upper left arm it held a scimitar, in its upper right arm it spun around a small golden chakram, in its lower right arm it held a large trident and its lower left arms was devoid of an item.

"I am Shiva, praised by 1000 and 116 names... You who hold my mask... For you I shall display my powers of destruction and rebirth. Let us dance together from now on..."

"It will be an honor," the young human says with a bow, "from here on, I am your Master"

As the human and Deva are making their vow, the alicorn take notice of the sirens curiousity and nudges for the humans attention. She gets his attention and he turns towards the sisters with a warm smile on his face as he makes his way over towards them. As he's making his way towards the bed, the dazzlings take notice that the human, alicorn and Deva are not the only ones approaching, numerous bizarre creatures are making their way towards the sirens, including: a pale skinned humanoid with silver wings, a small fairy, a living snowman, a skimpy cat-lady, a large two-headed dog, a skeleton wearing a matador uniform, a giant made of paper, a spearman wearing a scarf that covers most of his face and a white skinned woman stuck in a floating sculpture.

The sirens are growing nervous along with fear and uncertainty, the blond haired human takes notice to this and quickly turns to the others.

"Everyone stop!" all entities stop at the voice of their master, "If all of us approuch at once we'll only scare them, let me and Day handle this while you all make yourself known to our newly formed family member."

Just as he ordered, all creatures of varying apperances turn to introduce themselves to Shiva, while the Master and alicorn continue towards the sisters.

"Sorry about them, they were looking forward to your awakening," the Master said apologetically, "My name is Minato, Master of the Velvet Room."

"And I'm Daybreaker, the Shadow of Celestia." Daybreaker says with a bow.

The Dazzling sisters exchange glances towards eachother, trying to see what each of them are thinking of this situation. During their time in the human world, moments like this was rare, not the "being trapped in a giant bird caged with a glowing blue tree, filled with bizarre entities" but more specifically "friendly approaching people". If there is one thing they learn from the human world is that humans are selfish, greedy and easily frightened over things they don't understand. Kind humans were rare, usually they would be poor suffering families or elderly who's lost a child or two, most of them living on farms. But more than twice, even they would turn their back on them and not even hesitate to betray the sisters. Trust was something that they have never truly felt before, because when thought they had it, it would imediatelly be crushed.

"What do you want with us and why would you save us?!" Aria Blaze says suddenly as she stays close to her sisters.

Minato tilts his head sideways in confusion and curiosity, while Daybreaker looks enraged for how rude the siren is acting. But before Daybreaker could could voice her complaint, Minato raises his hand to silence her. For a while he just stared at the sisters, studying them. His eyes glow slightly as he inspects them, the oldest sister has an luminous orange aura with hints of yellow and red in it, giving off a royal dominating feeling. The second oldest had brilliant purple colour that gave of reflections of aquamarine like a wet surface reflecting light, giving off a feeling off wanting to protect herself and others. The youngest who looked to be the most fragile of the sisters had a pure light cerulean colour and gave off a feeling of wishing for things to be better. He continues to study the sirens, until something catches his eye, all of their auras seem to bind together to form a fourth colour, that looks to be an emerald green colour with hints of brilliant raspberry to it.

But despite this mix of colour, there were also flashes of black and deep blue that gave off a feeling of being hurt, betrayed and lost. Minato's eyes stops glowing and he closes them, seeming to be deep in thought. The sisters never let their guard down and are simply waiting to see what he would do next, while Daybreaker watch from the side and wondering what was going through Minato's head. He finally opens his eyes and walks closer towards the sirens, then he gives them the most friendly and heartmelting smile he can muster.

"You girls have had it rough, haven't you?~"

Saying that the girls heart skipped a beat would be an understatment, the sirens had all gained a slight blush while Daybreaker had turned completely crimson as her mane flares and her wings "POMF" out erect. One can only imagine what perverted thoughts are going through her head as she grows jealous over the fact that Minato isn't directing that smile at her.

"I'll prepare something for you girls to eat so we can sit down and have a proper conversation." Minato says and turns around as wisps falls down from the Moonlight Tree and begins to form an outdoor kitchen.

The sisters shake themselves out of their blushes and decide to trust this "Minato" for now. They all stand up from the bed and Daybreaker goes wide eyed and tries to warn them, but Minato turns around and then quickly looks to side as he gains a slight blush.

"I probably should have mentioned that your clothes were quite dirty so we decided to remove them."

The Dazzling go wide eyed as they look down and see that they are all buck naked. Their faces turn crimson as they all try to cover themselfs with their arms and whatever was nearby, while they all give out feminine "KYAH"s.

"I really hope that this wont be a comedic pattern for everytime I meet a woman in this world." Minato thought as he was trying hide his "excitement".

"Here you go Setanta." Minato says as he hands a plate of french toast to his persona.

"Thank you, Master." a deep but still young sounding voice came from the spearman.

Setanta appears as as a spear wielding young man, with a bowl cut and a green scarf with copper patterns covering most of his face. He wear a silver chest plate over his white leader armour, white leather boots and white leather gloves along with it, all having square patterns silver dots at the crosses. He also has a short brown cape going down his back.

As Minato finishes serving french toast, with strawberries and bananas as side dish, to the last of his Personas, he walks over to join the girls at the table. The sirens had been given some simple deep blue summer dresses to cover themselfs up, at the moment they were completely absorbed in enjoying the first proper meal they've had in years. Minato, Daybreaker and the Dazzlings sat at an outdoor table with Minato and Day sitting on two chairs at one side of the table and the sisters on a bench at the other side. The personas had also been given food and all of them are sitting around the platform, but not too far away from their master, while enjoying Minato's cooking. In complete silence everyone is simply enjoying the food that Minato had served with experties that would make Gordon Ramsay proud.

Or at least, everyone except Minato, because he was deep in thought. Like before information that he wasn't certain of why he knew, had been brought forth in his mind as he analysed the sirens, and it told everything he needed to know in order to understand that they had been through a lot. He didn't specifically know what they had been through, but he did know that they were all in pain, not physically, but mentally and emotionally. The auras that they displayed showed clearly that they had potential as powerful persona users, but the corruption in the form of sorrow, pain and loss had shaped up the majority of their being.

Sure it clearly showed that Adagio has a strong desire for power, Aria wants to protect her sisters with control, while Sonata simply wants things to be better. But all of those are only what's on top of the surface, it doesn't show the deeper details because it's completely covered with negativity. If this isn't taken care of soon, they'll never be able to accept themselfs and all that potential will be lost.

"I need to know what they've been through, but I can't rush it like I did with Daybreaker." Minato thought.
"All three of these girls are extremely hurt, if not traumatised from their past. They're clearly on edge and don't trust anyone but eachother. The hardship that they have faced together has made them inseparable from eachother, and that bond has given birth to an all new power that makes them unique even amongs persona users. It does seem like making some food was the right choise at least for now, all I can do for now is choose my next words carefully."

"By Faust Minato! This is delicious!" Daybreaker squeal in delight.

"Glad you all seem to like it, but it's really nothing special, it's just french toast." Minato says with a smile.

"French Toast?"

"It's a dish that was created in the country of France back in the 1800 back in my world. It was made as an attempt to make use of bread that had become to old and hard to eat. Back in France the dish is called "pain perdu" which means "lost bread" but in my home country of Sweden we called it "fattiga riddare" which means "poor knights".

"Why did they call it poor knights?" Sonata asked curiously.

"It's mostly connected to a statement that went: Even someone like a poor old man can put on a suit of armor and look like a knight. The name was given to the dish as a sort metaphor for that statement." Minato explained matter of factly.

"Stop talking about the history behind a stupid dish and answer my question already!" Aria shouts as she slams her hands into the table, startling everyone near the table and putting the personas on edge.

"Aria calm down, we're all sitting right here." Adagio said sternly.

"How can I remain calm when we just experienced death, only to awaken inside a giant birdcage that contains a giant glowing tree that can spawn stuff from nowhere, a blond pretty boy, a pony goddess and whatever the hay those freaks are!" she screams pointing at the personas.

"You think I'm calm?" Adagio mutters barely loud enough for the rest to hear.
"You think I'm calm?!" Adagio screams standing and causing Aria and Sonata to back away, "I saw nothing but darkness for what felt like eternity! I thought we were dead, I thought I was responsible for getting you two killed! I thought that my mistake had gotten the only family I have left killed! How could you even think that I would be calm with thoughts like that going through my head?! And what if it happens again?!"

She screamed as tears were pouring down her cheeks, she was letting out what was probably years worth of guilt and sorrow. Minato was listened carefully and was starting to put together a small picture of what might have happened, but he won't draw any conclusions yet since he didn't know the full story. He stood up and shot a glance towards a particular persona that he had summoned while the sirens were still unconscious.

It had an appearance of a white skinned woman wearing white robes and a white headscarf, she was inbedded into a white marble sculpture that showed numerous animals like a prehistoric fish, a tyranosaurus, a lion, a bull and an eagle. The opening were she was inbedded was golden and there were five golden discs floating around the statue, two at the bottom right and left, one above her head and two behind her at upper right and left.

Minato and the persona known as Maria approached Adagio, who was still shouting and crying, and before anyone can question what they were doing. Minato grabbed her shoulders turned her around and Maria gave her a warm comforting hug, just like a mother would do to her child. Ever since Minato summoned Maria, she's had this extremely soothing and calming aura surrounding her, the type of feeling a small child would experience when they hear their mothers heartbeat and voice. Perfect for calming down anyone who's distraught.
Minato placed a hand on Adagio's shoulder, catching her attention and making her turn to meet his golden eyes. He gave her a warm smile like before and began speaking.

"I can't imagine what you girls must have been through to make you this distraught. I'm not gonna act like I know how you feel, because I don't." He turned his gaze towards the other two, "but I can promise, as long as you're here and as long as I'm around." His gaze went back to Adagio.
"Nothing bad will happen to you girls again, not here and not in the near future either." He finished.

Adagio looked at Minato, with eyes that were red from her crying, she was trying to see any hint of malice, any hint betrayal, any hint to use them... But she found nothing. There was nothing but warmth and care in his eyes. It gave off a feeling that made it feel like his words weren't just true, they were the truth. As if he would make it a law that nothing would happen to them.

Her gaze left Minato and she turned to see her sisters giving her looks of uncenrtainty with small hint of hope. She then looked towards the others around them, she was expecting at least some form of hostility towards her from the more tough looking creatures that surrounded them, but each and everyone of them were giving her and her sisters looks of worry and concern. As if they actuelly cared for them despite having just met them.

She returned her gaze to Minato, looking any change in his expression, but nothing changed. He really did care for them and would make sure that they felt safe.
She fell to her knees and started crying as Aria and Sonata were rushing to hug and comfort their big sister. Aria was repeating apologies and Sonata was saying everything is gonna be okay. It finally seemed like the Dazzlings have found a place that they can feel safe, perhaps even call home.

Author's Notes:

Hear you go everyone!
I was trying to make this a chapter were the Dazzling would be both introduced and awaken their Persona. But I decided at the end to split the introduction and awakening to two chapters.

I'll try to wright the next chapter as soon as possible, but since I'm not sure how often I'll be able to write, I'm thinking of making the chapters longer. But I also don't want to add to much in each chapter.
I really want you guys feedback of the way I wrote this chapter, so far the chapters have been mostly from Minatos perspective. But this chapter began with Adagios perspective and then changed to a more third person view.
Does this work or is it confusing?

PS. I also figured out while writing this chapter how to add pictures, so a went back to previous chapters and added pictures of the personas, while also fixing some spelling and grammer errors.

Link: Barong, Rangda, Shiva, Setanta, Maria

Chapter 6. Power of Bonds

View Online

The Velvet Room

When it comes to Skills in a persona, they follow the rules of what is known as "Skill Inheritance Types". These types are Phys, Fire, Ice, Elec, Wind, Nuke, Psy, Bless, Curse, Heal, Ailment and Almighty. All of these are classified as categories that tells you what skills your persona is capable of learning. Though with the way the types are represented, it's more that they tell you what skills your persona is incapable of learning, rather than what they are capable of learning.

For example: if the persona has the inheritance type Fire, it means that they are incapable of learning any skills that belong to the inheritance Ice, the same goes the other way around. All elemental inheritance types follow this pattern of opposites, Fire vs Ice, Elec vs Wind and Psy vs Nuke.

The rules of the other types are a bit more complicated: Phys is incapable of learning any elemental skills, including Bless and Curse.
Bless is incapable of learning Phys, Curse and Ailments.
Curse is incapable of learning Phys, Bless and Heal.
Heal can't learn Phys and Curse.
And Ailment can't learn Bless and Heal.
Then there's the type Almighty which is capable of learning any skills no matter the type.

There are skills that don't matter what inheritance the persona has and can be learned by anyone. These types are Almighty and Support, as well as most Passive skills. There is also the Gun type, but skills that belong to that one is compiled with Physical skills.

Another way that determines what skills a persona can learn are what I like to call "Body inheritance". This is a catergory of inheritance that shows skills that can be learned depending on the persona's body type. These types are Thrust, Claw, Bite, Weapon, Mouth, Wings and Eye. If a persona is missing any of these body parts or possess something that hinders the other, then they are unable to learn any skills that is performed by that part of the body.

"Now," Minato finishes his presentation on the blackboard, "are there any questions?"

Currently Minato is holding a presentation for the Dazzling Sisters and Daybreaker. He has created a large blackboard, that is attached to the trunk of the Moonlight Tree, and is using different coloured crayons to represent the inheritance types as he draws.
As he turns around and asks his question, he sees all of his "room mates" sitting on school desks created from the tree, with all of his personas standing right behind them and giving their looks of acknowledgement and admiration for their Master. Adagio is resting her chin on her left palm, looking bored out of her mind. While Sonata, who's to her left, is somehow smoking from her head, and Aria on the left side of Sonata has fallen asleep. The only one that is giving Minato all of their attention is Daybreaker, who's sitting to Adagio's right, though her mind seems to be focused somewhere else on Minato rather than on the blackboard.
Seeing this, Minato frowns and proceeds to drag his fingernails over the blackboard, resulting in a screeching sound that causes everyone in the entire Velvet Room to cringe and waking up Aria which causes her to fall backwards with her arms flailing.

"ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME!" Minato shouts in frustration.

"Yes! Yes we are!" Adagio shout back as she rubs the inside of her tortured ears.
"But it's pretty difficult to understand anything that you're teaching us when we have yet to awaken our personas!"

It was true, despite the fact that the sirens had been in the Velvet Room for quite some time now, they had showed no progress in awakening their personas. From what Minato understands about the awakening process, one needs to accept reality and admit that they are flawed, or reject what the world sees as wrong. However, despite how many times they've tried, nothing has happened.
Minato knows that the sisters are capable of becoming persona users, but despite how much they've talked and confessed about their flaws and mistakes, they showed no sign of awakening. It only seemed to make the Dazzlings feel worse about their past, rather than helping them. Hoping to save time, Minato has been putting their awakening on hold while he teaches them the basics on what personas and shadows are and how they work.

"I don't understand," Minato mutters out loud, "there must be something that you're still neglecting, something that you aren't letting out."

"Well so far, while you have managed to give us a place to feel safe, you've also only made us feel worse. If I didn't hate myself before, I definently do now." Aria begins with a sarcastic and mocking tone as she gets up from the ground.
"Maybe if you spent a little more time and some of your godlike powers to figure out a way to escape from this place, then maybe we wouldn't have to feel like such a waste of infinite time and space."

"And I keep telling you that you're anything but a waste of time. I want to help you and I will help you." Minato stated sternly.

"Maybe we don't need or want your help." Aria keeps going.

"You're not making sense right now. You're speaking out of anger and frustration, you aren't thinking logically."

"And what makes you believe that?"

"One, if we have infinite resources then it is physically impossible for you to be a waste." Minato said holding up a finger, which follow with a second as he continued.
"And two, from your older sisters breakdown when we first met, it seemed like you were on death's doorstep."

"Well maybe you should've just let him open the door and we wouldn't have to waste your time."

"DON'T YOU DARE BELIEVE SUCH A THING!" Minato suddenly shouts catching Aria offguard.

Everyone in the room were shocked over Minato's outburst, as no one knew what should be said or if they should say anything at all. Aria was about to speak again, but before she could open her mouth she was hit with a realisation that made her pupil shrink to pinpricks, as she realised what she had just suggested.
Minato was the only person for more than a hundred years that was willing to waste his time in an attempt to help Aria and her sisters. And her thanks to that, was to suggest that he should have just let them die.

Tears began to form in her eyes as Aria covered her mouth with both her hands and turned around to run towards the direction of the pond. Adagio and Sonata cast a quick apologetic look towards Minato before they run after their distressed sister.
Minato sighs deeply as he turns around and walks the opposite direction of the Dazzlings. He stops at the edge of the platform and looks up towards the permanent solar eclipse of the Velvet Room. He feels a hand on his shoulder and turns to see Daybreaker.

"What am I doing wrong Day?" Minato ask with an emotionless face.

"Nothing, you're doing nothing wrong." Daybreaker answers with a caring smile on her face.
"Doing your best and what you think is right is all you can do. Like you explained before, you can't rush this like you did with me. It will take time."

With a soft smile Minato says, "Thanks Day, I'm glad to have you by my side, you're a good friend."

Despite Daybreaker's soft and reasuring smile, she felt like she was just stabbed through the heart and the inside of her head was filled with nothing more but, "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Sitting in a fetal position, Aria cries at the edge of the pond that her and her sisters arrived from. It's hard to explain but for some reason this place brings the sirens to some form of inner peace. Whenever they feel like they need to let their emotions out, this is the place to do so. The Mitama floating around the pond are also good company, since each one of them represent an aspect of the soul and an emotion. Depending on how the sisters are feeling, they sometime talk to the Mitama whenever they feel like talking to someone else but Minato and Daybreaker. But right now, Aria wants to do nothing more than cry over her own stubbornness.

"Why do I always mess up when it really matters?" Aria says between her weeps.

"If anyone here has messed up it's me." Aria turns to see Adagio sitting to her right. She leans her shoulder towards Aria as she continues.
"If I hadn't suggested that we use the Siren Hearts to spread strife around Equestria, we wouldn't have to suffer like we did."

"It's not your fault," Aria interupts, "I was the one who supported the idéa and made most of it happen."

"It's not just you two," Sonata jumps in and sits to Aria's left, "I should have said something instead of just going along with what you two were doing."

All three of them sit quietly and think back to all of their mistakes. What could they have done instead to avoid all that hardship? What could they have done to get along with the rest of Equestria? Where could they have gone were they would be accepted? And why did they have to be sent to that cursed magicless world that was even worse than their home world? If it could even be called their home anymore.
The more they think, the more they realise just how much of their lives have been one giant mashup of mistakes stacked on top of each other. And it makes them all feel like nothing more than a trio of failures.

"I wonder how long it will take until Minato gives up on us?" Aria mutters loud enough for all nearby to hear.

"Master would never do that!" Dahlia along with the Mitama say at the same time.

The sirens jump slightly at the new voices and look up to see the concerned faces of the Pixie surrounded by the Mitama.

"The Master is too kind to let others suffer like you girls have." Saki Mitama says with a caring voice.

"Have some faith why don't ya!" Ara Mitama exclaims aggressively.

"You girls need to enjoy yourself more, the Master will not let anything happen to you as long as you're by his side." Kusi Mitama says with a smooth elderly voice.

"Don't forget that we and the others are here as well, we're all connected to the Master and his will is our will." Nigi Mitama explains with a soft and relaxed voice.

Dahlia flies forward and places a hand on Aria's knee as she looks into her eyes.

"We all care about you girls and we want to help you." Dahlia states calmly with a smile.
"Not because we have to, but because we want to. So no more tears, let's all be one big happy family."

That word. That one word that hold so much warmth. The word that represents everything that they've wanted, despite not always being aware of it. The thing that the sisters have been searching for all this time. A family. For the first time in a long while, something that wasn't a selfish act made the Dazzlings smile with joy and warmth.

Following Daybreaker's advice, I decided that me and the Dazzlings should take a break from trying to awaken their personas and go back to experimenting with my own personas. Amongs the things I discovered, I noticed that phys attack are devided into two sub-catagories of damage, Slash and Strike. Both of these catagories are technically the same, but they are performed differently. Slash is phys damage delivered by a blade or sharp object, like swords, knifes, axes and claws. Strike is phys damage delivered by a blunt object or surface, like a punch, kick, bite, whip, mace, and hammer. What this means is if a Persona does not possess a blade or sharp object of some sort, then they cannot perform phys skills that deal slash damage. And if a Personas main weapon is a sharp object, they cannot perform phys skills that deal strike damage.

After this discovery, I became curious over what other elements and catagories were considered the same.
Spending some more time reading through the Le Grimoire and doing some personal experiments with my personas and Daybreaker, we discovered that Gun = Pierce and Needle, Ice = Water, Wind = Force and Blast, Psy = Gravity, Bless = Light, Expel and Holy and finally Curse = Dark and Death.

Ailments are divided into four different types, these being Elemental, Magical, Nerve and Mind.

Elemental includes: Burn (small amount of dmg to self on every action), Freeze (prevents all action) and Shock (prevents movement).

Magical includes: Charm (attacks allies or cast healing spells on enemies), Poison (small amount of dmg to self on every action), Mute (prevents the use of magic), Stone (petrifies target and will insta-kill if followed by a Wind or strong phys skill) and Happy (Overjoyed and may not attack).

Nerve includes: Dizzy (decreases aim), Bind (prevents all action), Paralysis (prevents movement) and Stun (lowers agility and defense).

Mind includes: Sleep (falls asleep and recovers small amount of HP and SP with time), Brainwash (attacks allies or cast healing spells on enemies), Panic (prevents all action except regular attacks), Fear (may not attack and might run away), Confusion (makes one do weird actions like throwing away money), Forget (forgets how to use skills), Despair (Drains SP every turn and cannot move) and Rage (lowers defence, increases attack and will attack anyone).

Many of these are very much the same, but each one has something that makes them different from eachother and some are more effective and will land more often than others. The main things to remember however, are that Elemental can be followed by a Nuke skill to deal technincal damage, while Mind can be followed by a Psy skill to deal technical damage. You can also deal technical damage by following the dizzy ailment with a Wind skill. Technical damage is just a follow up attack that will deal more damage to a target if followed correctly.
Some ailments can be followed by phys skills to always land Critical Hits, these are Freeze, Shock and Paralysis.
There are Healing skills made specifically to fix each ailment, but since I have access to Salvation (fully restores HP and removes any ailment), I don't think I'll need to bother with any of them.

Another discovery we made was how personas perform skills differently depending on their body types. Animal shaped personas like Orthrus will perform elemental skills by releasing the element out of their mouth. While more human shaped personas will perform the same skills by doing some hand movements and then release the element. If a persona is holding an object, then they will release the element from the object instead of their hands.
The same goes with regular attacks as well. Regular attack will always deal light phys damage, but the type changes from slash and strike depending on the body, Orthrus and Nekomata for example deal slash damage since they use their claws to attack.

This reminded me that I need to know how Weaknesses and Critical Hits work. For safety reasons we decided to only use skills that deal minimal damage in order to avoid serious injuries, and after performing some attacks on both myself and Daybreaker this is what we discovered. If a shadow or persona is hit with an element they are weak against or hit with a crit, it will cause them to stumble and fall. The fall doesn't hurt, unless you fall from really high up, and the only consequences is that you are unable to perform skills during the fall and before you've regained your footing.

Speaking of damage, another thing that we had to check was how powerful some attacks really were. The damage is measured as (from weakest too strongest) Miniscule, Light, Medium, Heavy, Severe and Colossal. Miniscule is like being slapped, it hurts but doesn't do much. Light is more like a punch to the face, hurts, might leave a scratch and suprise you. Medium is were you'll likely start to see bruises and bleeding, Heavy is were bones easily break, and finally we reach Severe and Colossal.
For this I thought that it was time to take some more serious safety precautions.

"Is this really necessary?" Adagio asks with a deadpan expression.

Minato had used his powers over the Velvet Room to expand the platform to the point were he could no longer see the edge. He also created a bombtest bunker for extra safety precaution in order to make sure that he and the girls would not get hit by the attacks, the bunker was in a box shape, three walls and a roof with the open backside towards the tree and five small windows for them to look through.

"Yes it is necassary." Minato answered with a deadpan back at Adagio.
"Last time an attack that delt Severe damage was used I took serious damage and only recovered as fast as I did because Messiah was resistant to that element and he knew a heal skill. I promised that you would be safe and unharmed, so that is exactly what I'm gonna do."

As Minato finished his explaination, Daybreaker turned away from the rest of the group to hide her face that was currently beet red from embarrassment and shame.

"I'm pretty sure we can handle being pushed and shoved around from some explosion." Aria said with a confident smirk.

"Yeah but can you handle the potential ricochet of divine lightning spawned from the high heavens that strikes with the force of a point blank five ton cannonball?"

"..."

"Yeah thought so. Ok are the targets ready!?"

"Yes Master!" multiple voices shouted in the distance.

From afar stood 4 entities that Minato had summoned for the sole purpose of being punching bags for this experiment.
The first was a green blob with red eyes named Slime.

The second, a grey lanky looking imp named Ukobach, with blond hair and pink lipstick, carrying a big burning spoon.

The third, a green doll with pearl white eyes named Mokoi, holding a boomerang.

The fourth and last was a naked, dirt brown skinned, silver haired, lanky looking humanoid with a beer belly named Preta.

"Any reason why you chose those four to be the targets?" asked Daybreaker curiously.

"Yes actuelly," Minato answered with a happy tone, "One, each of them only have one resistance. Two, they only have one weakness. Three, they're cheap and easy to summon. And four, I hate them all."

"..."

"What?" Minato asked confused over the girls wide eyed silence.

"Just... shocked. I've never heard you speak out of malice in such a way before." Daybreaker answers as she recovered.

"Why exactly do you hate them?" Sonata asked curiously with a headtilt.

"One, I hate how they look. Two, they're incredibly weak and useless. Three, as shadows they're annoying to fight because they always gather in groups. And four, all of their origins are horrible."

"They're origins?" the girls say with raised eyebrows.

"A Slime, also commonly called Ooze, are common type monsters in many fantasy genres that have become popular as weak monster in modern culture. This Slime in particular is based on the slimes that are the result of failed demonic summons and are nothing than pure corruption in the form of molting rotten flesh that secretes acid. They have no brains and dissolve whatever comes into contact with them."

The girls cringe at that explaination and are starting to worry what the others are.

"Ukobach is a lesser-class demon from Hell based from Abrahamic Mythology. He has no sense of free will and so will only follow the commands of higher-class demons. He is in charge of maintaining the oil in the infernal boilers and will often torture the souls trapped in Hell by throwing burning coals on them. His only ability is to start fires."

That one made the girls feel more disturb because of how pathetic Minato made it sound.

"Mokoi are evil spirits from Australian Murngin folklore that live in the jungle and move at night. They are the reincarnation of the "shadow soul" of humans and kill those who use dark magic. They would kidnap and eat children at night, they are also sometimes responsible for causing wars between mortals."

That one made Daybreaker's blood boil, the idéa of a child eating monster that is responsible for wars was a enough for her to loose all sympathy she previously felt for these creatures.

"Lastly, Preta is a spirit that originates from Buddhist and Hindu texts. Generally, they are the spirits of greedy, jealous or corrupted people who have become demons with an insatiable appetite for a particular substance, that can vary from corpses to anything bizarre. In the traditional religion of China, they are beings driven by intense emotional needs in an animalistic way. In the modern Japanese language, spoiled children are called "gaki," as a reference to this demon."

Suddenly, non of the girls felt bad over the idéa of these things being absolutely obliterated.

"Well? What are we waiting for?" Aria said with new found glee, "Let's blast these filth!"

"Alrighty then!" Minato shouts, "Messiah, Maria, Shiva! Are you ready!?"

"Yes Master!" the three shouted back from the danger zone.

For this experiment, I had equipped Messiah and Shiva with the selected skills that I wanted to try for this test. The reason why is because Messiah inheritance is Almighty and he has the most resistances of all his personas, so if there is a chance that he gets caught in the crossfire he won't be affected that much.
While Shiva is immune to Ice, Bless and Curse, he reflects Electricity and absorbs Psy. This is made even better considering he has no weakness, making him one of my strongest personas with the most immunities. Though I still find it odd that despite his inheritance being Elec, one of his innate skills is Magarudyne, which is a Wind skill that deals Heavy damage towards multiple targets.
Finally, the reason for Maria is because of her signature skill Holy Benevolence, which revives all intended targets with all of their HP fully restored.

"Fire in the hole!" Minato yells after giving himself and the girls bright light protection goggles.

Once the experiment was finished, we discovered that even though certain skills are stated to deal damage to only one target, that does not mean that the attacks can't hit others that happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. A better way to describe it would be that the skills only target a small area, rather than a larger one intended for multiple targets.
This means that Severe skills like Inferno, Diamond Dust, Thunder Reign, Panta Rhei, Psycho Force and Atomic Flare are "safer" to use in a populated area. It's still not a good idéa since they are so powerful and should be used with caution, but if the situation calls for it they can be used.
However, skills that deal Severe damage and target a larger area are not safe and in all honesty a bit overkill. Blazing Hell, Ice Age, Wild Thunder, Vacuum Wave, Psycho Blast, Cosmic Flare and even Megidolaon should only be used in large open areas.

Phys and Gun skills were a bit more complicated. Severe damage skills like Megaton Raid, Deadly Fury, Death Scythe and One-Shot Kill are safe since they don't cause a giant explosion after use. Even Severe multi-target skills like Vorpal Blade and Riot Gun are safe to use, with a bit of distance.
But Colossal damage is when it starts to get a bit more complicated. Single target skills like Brave Blade, God's Hand and Sword Dance are extremely risque and should be used with extreme caution and confirmation that no one else is around. While the skill Gigantomachia should not be used at all.

Why you may ask?

Well...

"And finally Gigantomachia, fire away Messiah!" Minato yelled as Messiah lifted both of his arms and brought them down to form an earth shatterin-
"ÅH HERRE MIN SKAPARE!!!" (Swedish for "OH LORD MY CREATOR!!!")

KABOOM!!!

Warning: LEWD incoming!

"How is that a Physical skill?!" Daybreaker yells as the Velvet Room is fixing itself.

"Because he uses his fists in order to make the attack." Minato explained calmly as he dusted himself off.

"I'm pretty certain that if an attack strikes with enough force to generate heat that causes an massive earth shattering explosion that can can create the Badlands 2.0, it should be considered a Fire, Nuke or maybe even Almighty." Daybreaker reasoned as she helped Sonata get up on her feet.

"Could not agree more!" Aria shouts as her twin tails are completely undone and her hair's a mess.

"Maybe that's enough experimentation for one day?" Adagio pleads.

"Yeah, you're right Dagi." Minato sighs.
"I'll prepare a large bath for everyone."

Using his powers over the Velvet Room, Minato transforms the large crator into a natural hot spring. With small versions of the Moonlight Tree surrounding the spring, their petals glowing with bioluminescence, lighting up the water with a beautiful glow and creating a relaxing atmostphere.

"Alright just wait one more second and I'll prepare a changing-" *SPLASH* "Room?" Minato thought the last word as he could not finish the sentence before someone had pushed him into the water.

Minato pops up to the waters surface and removes his hair that was blocking his vision. Going wide eyed as he sees all the girls happily stripping down before Sonata jumps into the water with a gleefull "Wheeeeeeee!" Adagio and Aria follow soon after, going into the water much more calmly but still with clear excitement in their eyes.
All three of the Sirens bodies start glowing with magic as they change from their land forms, to their their true Siren forms. Their previously furry tails becoming serpent-like with a fin at the end, their ears also becoming fins and their hands becoming webbed. Now when Minato gains a better look at their bodies he can see a clear difference with how they look compare to eachother. Sonata has the biggest bust out of the three, with smooth well cared skin that shows of her childlike youth. Aria is in the middle of the three when it comes to curves, more well balanced with her chest and hips, but she has much more muscle than the other two, showing that she is not a girl you wanna mess with. Adagio has the smallest bust size, though she still wasn't small by any means. She has much wider hips compare to the other two, with a nice plump behind.
Might as well compare everyones height, Minato is 1.70m and Daybreaker is 2.52m, meaning when standing Minato's head is just under Daybreakers chest. Sonata is 1.74m, Aria is 1.75m and Adagio is 1.76, not counting her hair.
The girls take notice of his staring and gain mischievous glint in their eyes, making Minato turn and look to his right.

"Well~?" Adagio slithers out seductively, "Are you gonna take off your clothes or not?"

Minato's eyes returns to the Sisters and he gives them a smirk to signal "challange accepted" before snapping his fingers and causing his clothes to dissappear in blue flames. Minato's body was not bulky, but he had clear visible muscle underneath his skin. This was both because of his backround with his grand parents, helping them on their farm, and because of his connection with his personas. Some of the previous confidence the girls had dissappeared for a moment, Adagio in particular turned a very bright red, before another feeling took over.

Lust

Minato realises that he might have made a mistake and begins to laugh nervously as he slowly backs away. The girls smoothly swim closer to Minato, like predators stalking their prey. The situation caused Minato to imagine himself dressed like a sheep and the Dazzlings dressed like skimpy wolfs while circling him. It was an image that was just as arousing as it was terrifying.

But before the wolfs could get their claws on him. Something grabs Minato from behind and pushes the back of his head into something incredibly soft. He looks up and meets the affectionate eyes of Daybreaker, who is hugging him protectively with both her arms and wings wrap around him while his head is being pressed towards her chest. She breaks eye contact stare daggers towards the Sirens, giving the very clear message to back off.

"Well someone's a bit possessive." Aria comments with a smirk.

Daybreaker just growls like a lioness protecting her cub while she presses Minato's head deeper into her massive breasts and uses her wings to cover more of his body, completely hiding him from the hungry Sirens.

"Oh come on!" Sonata exclaims with her arms stretched out.
"You've known him the longest, at least let us have a turn."

Daybreaker raises an eyebrow in confusion.
"Have a turn?"

"Yeah, you know... In bed." Adagio says with an eyeroll.

Daybreaker turns red as a tomato as the water around her begins to boil. She starts sputtering and mumbling words uncontrollably as spirals seems to form in her eyes and smoke begins to rise from her head.

"Nice job you two, you broke her." Aria says with a scowl.

While the girls were having their "very intresting" conversation, Minato was trapped in his own thought as he was hidden in the soft darkness.

"Weird, I can't breath yet I don't feel like I'm suffocating. Does that mean I don't need to breath anymore either? Or do I just have really strong lungs now?
Well, since I don't seem to be running out of air I might as well take this time to think about the Dazzlings awakening problem. Why doesn't it work? They've told me pretty much everything regarding their background and admitted to me about their flaws. I specifically spend time with each one of them so that I could understand them better on a personal level. Yet there's nothing. No spark, no glow, no flame or voice inside their heart. Nothing.
What is it that I'm missing?"

Just as that question was mentally asked, the same clicking noise that happened before made itself present in Minato's head. His eye began to glow and through the darkness he saw the auras of the sirens right in front of him. He couldn't see the sisters themselves but he could see their auras in more detail then previously. Within the colorful smoke he saw something that he hadn't noticed before. It was thin, long, red and slithered from the core of each aura, and connected at the fourth aura that Minato had noticed earlier between the sisters.

"What is that? That wasn't there before... or was it and I just couldn't see it? It looks like... a red string."

It was at that moment that all the pieces fell together, the one thing that Minato had forgotten regarding the power behind the persona and the true meaning behind the power of the arcana and the Wild Card.

Now back with the girls, the sirens had realised now why Daybreaker was acting so flustered.

"Don't tell me that the immortal goddess of the sun is a virgin." Aria exclaimed with a look of disbelief.

"Well-"
"I GOT IT!" Daybreaker's sentence was cut short as Minato popped his head out from his heavenly prison.

"Got what?! Air?!" Adagio said slightly startled from Minato's return.

"Breathing is overrated." Minato said with a deadpan as he freed himself from Daybreaker's hold, much to her dissapointment.
"But no, what I mean is I finally figured out why you girls haven't awakened yet. It was because I had forgotten a very important fact regarding the power of a persona."

The girls tilted their heads in confusion and interest.

"The power behind a persons arcana is directly connected with the power of bonds. The power that connects people together." Minato explained wisely.

"..."

Minato releases a loud sigh over the girls silent confusion.

"You girls have had no one else to turn too but yourselves for who knows how long. This has created an unbreakable bond between all of you that connects your hearts on a unique level unlike any previous persona users. In order to prove that bond, what you girls need to admit is not your own flaws, but the flaws you've noticed from eachother, you need to tell eachother exactly what you think of one another."

"That sounds like a horrible idéa, won't we just hurt eachother and the bond we share by doing that?" Adagio asked with clear concern in her voice.

"If you're bond is really what I think it is, then I believe that you all need to hear it and face the truth." Minato said like a sage.
"Think about it. Has any of you ever told eachother what you really feel about one another?"

The sisters stand silently, contemplating over Minato's words. Have they really never told eachother what they feel for one another? Have they never told eachother how much they love and care for one another? Has it even been necessary before now?
Their eyes turn to eachother. Adagio looking between Aria and Sonata. Aria looking between Sonata and Adagio. And Sonata looking between her big sisters. Dread and worry is clear on each one of their faces, all of them worrying over what they are about to say. Despite how tough and responsible the older two always act, the one to speak first was Sonata.

"You're both idiots," she begins, "I know I'm not smart, but you two are not far off. The moment things went wrong, you thought the best course of action was to make more enemies than we already had. Resulting in all three of us being dragged down and getting hurt both physically and mentally."

Adagio and Aria look towards their younger sister in shock, the usually carefree and weak looking siren that they've always know was looking at them with clear anger in her eyes. The guilt that they both felt was near unbearable, seeing their innocent sister like this.

"But... If someone gave me the choice of replacing either of you... I would tell them to walk the other direction and speak their nonsense to someone that doesn't love their family."

The older sirens are left shocked as the anger in Sonata's eyes was replaced with the most angelic and mature smile their sister has ever made. Since when did their weak little sister become so... grown up.
Aria's gaze switches to Adagio before her face scrunches up into an angry scowl.

"You both make so mad," Aria growls, "Adagio is a horrible leader and rolemodel while Sonata is so dumb she can barely count to ten without using her fingers.

Adagio has many times had her sister argue with her, but her voice held so much hatred in it that it started to become extremely difficult to hold back the tears.

"Everyday, I just wanna punch something to take out my frustration. And nothing makes me happier than hearing someone else insult you. Because then, I can finally do just that." her scowl dissappears and is replaced with a confident smirk.
"They can insult me, but if anyone ever dares to insult you two. I'll beat them unconscious and then bury them alive. I'll make as many enemies as I can, if it means keeping you two safe from harm."

Tears fall from Adagio's eyes, she's always known... no, she always assumed that her sisters cared for her just as much as she did them. Was this really it? Have they really never told eachother how they feel? If they can speak to her with full honesty like this, then so can she.

"I know I make mistakes, but I've lost count to how many times it's really been your fault." Adagio glares at her younger sisters with frustration.
"Sonata, you always run around without a care in the world, never thinking before acting. Even when I give you the most simple of instruction, something as simple as a butterfly can make you turn around and leave my side when I specifcally told you not to."

Sonata looks down with guilt, knowing that her sister is right as she recalling the exact moment that she's talking about.

"And you Aria, is it really that hard to keep yourself in check. If it isn't Sonata walking away like a lost puppy, it's you picking a fight with some random poser that looked at us the wrong way. Do you really have to threaten and pummel every snob, until their face can't be recognised?"

Aria's not sure how she should feel hearing that. She always hates it when people look at her and her sisters like they're objects. Even though seduction and mind tricks has always been their strong point, she could never do it as well as Adagio and Sonata. Thinking about it, she might just be more bark than bite.

"Honestly, you both are so annoying in your own right that it gives me a headache 24/7." She closed her eyes and takes a deep breath.
"But... you're headache that I never want to get rid off."

Adagio smiles as she meets the eyes of her little sisters, no longer keeping anything inside and gladly letting it out as tears run down her cheeks.

"Promise me, no matter what I say, no matter how much I tell you to leave me alone. Don't do it, continue to be what you are now. Continue to be the lovable airhead that you are Sonny, and continue to be the unbreakable rebel that you are Ari." she finishes with their nicknames.

"I love you both, more than anything." unable to hold it back any longer the sisters all approuch eachother, hugging and crying their hearts out. This is a pain that they've never felt before, a pain from their hearts. But for some reason, they don't want it to dissappear, they want to feel to know that it's real, to know that the bond that they all share is real. The bond that can never be broken.

"Finally you decided to speak with your heart!" a young female voice said as Sonata began to glow in a blue light.

"What a stubborn master I have, but it is a master I'll gladly serve!" a deep voice of autority spoke as Aria began to glow.

"With our hearts finally opened, our songs shall reach both land, sea and the sky." a mature confidant voice spoke as Adagio began to glow.

They distance themselves from eachother as the glow becomes stronger, looking with wide eyes as the water begins to swirl around them and three figures begin to form.
The first was Sonata, the water began to rise and take shape around her. Slithering around her waist before two thin feminine arms hug her from behind. A head with pointy ears, long green and blond hair and red eyes comes forth and rests on her shoulder with a content smile.

"I am Undine the water elemental. From now on, let's be honest with ourselves and always speak with our hearts. I am thou, thou art I."

The second was Aria, the water swirled with more intensity until a large creature burst forth and began to swim through the air like it was still in water. The creature looked like a combination between a shark and a sting ray, with four large fins that made up most of it's semi-flat body, a long thin tail with a shark like fin near the middle of it's length, gills at it's underside and a wide shark-like head with amber eyes and a wide mouth with sharp teeth.

"I am Forneus, a Great Marquis of Hell. Now that I am your mask, the hidden arias of the world shall be yours. I am thou, thou art I."

The last was Adagio, the water swirled and splashed, droplets beginning to rise and smash together and take shape. The figure looked like a beautiful young woman whose right side was like that of a wyvern. The left side had smooth, pale skin, nice curves and blond hair. While the right side was covered in ruby red scales, her right arm had been replaced with a large wing, a long snake-like tail slithered from her back, pitch black hair fell from her head as yellow eyes that glowed like fire shined brightly thanks to the black sclera that replaced the white. A single long black cloth covered her body, hiding her private and giving off a aura of seduction and danger.

"I am Vouivre the flying serpent. Remember it well, as it is the name of the one that shall spread our beautiful melodies through the sky and make us shine brighter than any star. I am thou, thou art I."

As the three personas finished their vows, they burst in blue flames take the forms of their respective arcana. Undine of the Lovers arcana, Forneus of the Emperors arcana and Vouivre of the Devils arcana.
Each of the cards slowly float down towards the sisters opened palms, before they disappear in blue flames that travel into their hearts.

The sirens all smile as they once again hug eachother with tears of joy falling down their cheeks. Minato says nothing as he watches the girls with his own sense of satisfaction in his eyes. He turns to see Daybreaker also smiling, though her eyes seem to hold a different emotion, as well as a clear sense of longing.

"Is something wrong Day?" Minato ask with concern.

Daybreaker shakes her head slightly, as she seemed to have been in some form of trance. While Minato didn't know yet, her mind had gone back in time. To a time were Celestia and Luna would share moments like this with eachother.

"I'm fine..." she begins with a low tone.
"It's just... seeing them like this makes me remember the time me and Lu- I mean, when Celestia and Luna would sometimes argue and then make up with eachother. Though... the last couple of years before her banishment..."

Daybreaker is struggling with the words, as tears begin to form in her own eyes.

"It just made me realise how horrible of a sister I've been. If I had just let her have her way just one time. Then maybe... she didn't have to be- to be..." she covers her mouth with her hand, as she cannot help but openly cry and fall to her knees in the water.

Seeing his friend so distraught, Minato doesn't hesitate to approach and hug her. A hug which she gladly returns as she cries into his shoulder.

I'm not sure for how long I hugged Daybreaker, but considering that the Dazzlings had enough time to recover and also give their own support to her, even though they didn't know why she'd started crying, it was probably much longer than any of us thought.
Now all of us are sitting in a semi-circle together in the water, Daybreaker to my right and the Dazzlings to my left, simply relaxing as all the stress float away in the warmth. Daybreaker is avoiding eye contact with me, seemingly embarassed over her break down earlier. Though it also seems like she wants to say something, but I won't push her.

"Hey Minato!" my gaze turn from my right to my left as Sonata is now only a few inches away from my face.

"Yes Sonny." I answer completely unfazed by her lack of personal space.

"I'm curious over what our arcanas represent, as well as the origins of our personas." Sonata ask with sparkles in her eyes.

"I'm curious as well." Adagio says she leans over Sonata's right shoulder.

"Me too." Aria follows as she leans on Sonata's left shoulder.

"Well, I'll gladly indulge you then." I answer with a smirk as I continue to be unfazed by the girls obvious attempt at seduction. Much to their frustration.

I hold out my right hand as the Le Grimoire manifest in blue flames and opens up. Following soon after I hold out my left hand and the Lovers arcana floats and lands in my palm were it floats in a blue glow.

"Sonata, you possess the Lovers Arcana. In tarot readings, this Arcana initially represented two paths life could lead to, and thus a symbol of standing at a crossroad and needing to make a decision. In modern time however, it is portrayed more of a symbol of love and romantic relationships, although it can also be a symbol of finding agreement with an ordinary friend or even two conflicting elements within."

"Your Persona, Undine, is based on a female creature that the medieval German-Swiss chemist Paracelsus had coined for water elementals. It symbolizes the element of water and is always depicted as a beautiful female, which is consistent with the ancient idea that water is a female element.
They are usually found in forest pools and waterfalls, and their beautiful singing voices are sometimes heard over the sound of water. In one story, an undine married a human who vowed to love her with every breath he took, but when he was unfaithful, she cursed him to stop breathing in his sleep and die."

The Lovers leave my hand and is replaced by the Emperor, the book flips to another page and I continue to read through it.

"Aria, you bare the Emperor Arcana. It symbolizes the desire to control one's surroundings, and its appearance could suggest that one is trying too hard to achieve this, possibly causing trouble for others, as some elements in life are just not controllable."

"Your Persona, Forneus, is based on the thirtieth demonic spirit listed in the Ars Goetia, according to the writings in The Lesser Key of Solomon. He is a Great Marquis of Hell with twenty-nine legions of demons under his command and appears as a sea monster.
When summoned, he can make someone well-versed in rhetoric, give them a good name, teach them foreign languages, and make them trusted by friend and foe alike. The demon Forneus is primarily a protection demon. Though most people think of demons as evil-doers, Forneus actually protects others from the acts of evil-doers. When he was still an angel, his duty was to help channel positive energy and to ensure that justice and balance is upheld, particularly for those who had been victimized unnecessarily. He continues to work in a similar manner and is one of the demons that summoners look for in the times of danger and injustice."

This caught the girls attention as I explained. The idéa behind a demon of justice that protects innocent seemed particularly bizarre for them. Daybreaker was especially intrested in this concept, as she and her sister have always believed demons to be nothing more than pure evil.
The arcana leaves my hand and is replaced by the Devil arcana.

"Lastly Adagio, your arcana is the Devil. This arcana holds both a negative and possitive aspect. The negative aspect of it represents the urge to do selfish, impulsive, violent things, and being a slave to one's own impulse and feelings. Occasionally, it is also portrayed as a symbol of temptation. The positive aspect, however, represents a healthy bond or commitment."

"Your Persona, Vouivre, is based on the Vouivres, also known as Guivres, from European Mythology. They are described as flying serpents with jewels embedded to their foreheads, which gives them the sense of sight. In the book The Drac: French Tales of Dragons and Demons, it was depicted as a female creature with dazzling scales which emanate a melody-like sound as it flies. The creature in this story stayed in a cave for most of her time, then left to bathe only for a few minutes. For some reason they were afraid of naked humans, and when they saw them, they would blush and look away."

As I read this, everyones eyes slowly turn to Adagio. She notices our stares and takes a quick look behind her before returning to meet our gazes, realising that we were staring at her.

"What?" she says with a headtilt.

"Oh nothing, just checking to see if you're blushing or not." I answer.

"Why would I? I've already seen you naked." she returns sounding a little upset.

"Fair enough." I close the book, letting it dissappear in blue flames and return to simply relax in the water, the Dazzlings begin a discussion over whose persona has the best origin, but I zone them out as I relax.
I only relax for so long though, as I activate my eye and take a look at the girls auras again. All the black and blue have dissappeared, meaning they've succeded and accepted their Shadows. However, the fourth aura still remains, but there is something different about it. The red string that was near invisible before is much more visible now. I think I can see a faint outline of a card, but I don't see what. Well, only time will tell.
My thoughts are broken as I feel someone tap on my shoulder. I turn around to see Daybreaker, looking slightly flustered as she taps her fingers together nervously.

"Is something wrong Day." I ask using her pet name, which seem to calm her down slightly.

"Well, it's just..." she swallows, and is contemplating over whatever she is about to ask.
"Earlier you mentioned that the true source of power to the arcana was directly connected to peoples bonds. So I was just wondering... how far does that go exactly."

"Well," I start thinking over my next words, "that depends on the relationship. But realistically speaking, there is no real way to measure it. Ultimately it comes down to what the relationship is and how real it is."

My answer didn't seem to satisfy her, but she clearly took it to heart and fell deep into her thoughts again. While I myself is also thinking over the next step here. It is pretty obvious as to why she is asking me this and honestly I'm not against it. She is beautiful and is probably one of the few beings that can remain by my side in the future, since I'm pretty certain at this point that me becoming the Master of the Velvet Room has made me immortal. Daybreaker is most likely my best option for a romantic partner. Though the question is: Am I ready to tie the knot... well, only one way to find out.

"*inhale* Day~?" my question catches her attention, as she looks up to see that I've moved closer.
"Why did you really ask that question?"

"Erm-eh-well-you see- I-" she stammers as she repeats and fails to form a sentence.
She swallows hard and asks, "What is our relationship at this point?"

She looks me right in the eye, her face bright red as she begins to tear up.

"Well," I pause, "what do you want our relationship to be?"

I know I'm teasing her alot here, but I feel that she is the one that needs to make this decision.
Her face scrunches up as she closes her eyes, her entire body is shaking as it seems to take all of her strength to get this out.

Her face relaxes as she finally let's out, "I want this." she slides her arm around my back, pulls me in and gently places her lips on my own.
A bit shocked that this is how she wants to confess, it takes me a second to return the kiss. But I'm immediately brought back to reality as I hear her wimper slightly, afraid to open her eyes to meet my gaze.

"She's so scared," I think to myself, "I didn't think it was this bad. Well, good thing I haven't lost my heart."

I gently place my right hand to her left cheek and slides my left arm behind her back. This action make her flinch at first, but she immediately relaxes as I pull her closer, returning the kiss. We separate from eachother, her face is bright red as she opens her eyes to meet mine, looking nothing like fierce sun goddess I saw when she first arrived here. She looks so cute.

"You may not be a real goddess," I smile gently, "but you'll always be a goddess in my eyes. My goddess."

If a smile could emit light, her's would have shined brighter than the sun itself. Tears of happiness falls down her cheeks as she pulls me close into what would be a bone crushing hug if my connection to my personas hadn't toughen me up so much. She nuzzles the side of my head, an action which I gladly return.

"Ahem," me and Daybreaker are brought out of our love trance as we both remember that we aren't alone. We turn around and see our favorite sirens smirking at us.

"Soooo, now that you've confessed your love for eachother." Sonata starts with an innocent tone, "Would it be alright if we joined for the honey?"

Me and Day share a quick glance at eachother, having a silent discussion before we both smile, coming to an aggrement.

"Alright, but let's take this to bed at least." I say as we prepare to leave the bath.

Later in the middle of our love making. I made the discovery that new skills can apparently be created on the spot, as I had apparently learn the Gun skill; Bust-a-Nut.

In the distance Minato's personas were looking in a mix of awe and mild concern, as their Master is *ahem* "Putting the wand in the chambers of secrets" as some would say.

"Should we help him?" Setanta asked his fellow personas.

"Why?" Shiva responded confused.

"Because I'm not sure how much more his hips can take."

"We have two of us that possess skills which fully restores HP, he'll be fine." Matador states with a shrug.

"Ohhh, how sinful." Maria says like a scolding mother as she covers Jack Frost's eyes.

"I don't know whether or not I should be happy that we aren't connected on such a level that we can feel what he's feeling right now." Messiah says with a slight cringe as the others seem to agree.

"Grrr, I wanna join!" Dahlia and Nekomata says at the same time. The others just look at them slightly disturbed.

More time has past in the Velvet Room, which means more has changed. Some old faces have changed and some new have arrived.
Jack Frost has become Black Frost after getting involved in a triple fusion with Jack-o-Lantern and King Frost.

And Setanta has evolved into Cu Chulainn.

But these two aren't the only new ones, as Minato has summoned three more personas to be part of their family.
The first is Girimehkala. He looks like a big, fat, blue, anthropomorphic, cyclops elephant. His body is covered in black stripes like a tiger and he wears a black cloth with a large gold medal, covering his crotch. He has three golden rings on his ankles and left wrist, golden shoulder guards and wield a long scimitar.

The second is Daisoujou. He looks like a mummified Buddhist monk, based on the Sokushinbutsu.

Lastly, the third is Alice. She looks like a pale skinned little girl, around the age of seven, with blond hair and golden eyes. She wears a purple dress, a white bow holding up her hair and black shoes.

After some more experimentation, Minato discovered that the effects of Support skills will last until someone has performed three skills. It seems that actions which involves skills are what counts as a turn in this reality. Being exposed to a buff support skill, feels similar to taking an energy drink and painkillers at the same time, full of energy and barely any pain. Each support skill can be stacked up to four times until it reaches a limit, unless the skill itself says otherwise. Support skills are composed of two roots, First Root and Last Root.

First Root include: Taru (Strength), Maka (Magic), Raku (Endurance), Suku (Agility) and De (Negat).

The follow up to these are the Last Roots, being: kaja (Boost) and kunda (Lower).

For example, Tarukaja boost strength while Tarukunda lowers strength.
There is also Ma, which indicate that it effects multiple, if not all targets. For example, Makakaja boost magic of one ally while Mamakakaja boost the magic of the entire party.

The stats of a persona is divided as Strength, Magic, Endurance, Agility and Luck.

Strength determines how much damage Phys and Gun skills will deal.

Magic determines how much damage Fire, Ice, Elec, Wind, Nuke, Psy, Bless, Curse and Almighty skills will deal, as well as how much SP a persona possess.

Endurance determines how much damage a persona can take, or more specifically, how much HP they possess.

Agility determines a personas speed, evasiveness and how often their attacks will hit.

And lastly, Luck determines Critical Hits, the chances of inflicting and recovering from ailments, and the chances of inflicting or evading instant-kill skills.

While every individual possess their own amount of HP and SP, the amount is enhanced by the awakening of a persona. The higher the stats, the more the amount. But these stats can also be enhanced by regular means, HP can be enhanced through normal endurance training like running and doing push ups, while SP can be enhanced through mental and spiritual training, like reading and meditating.

Minato decided that today would be a day of relaxation. He and Daybreaker are currently lying in a royal bed together, with him reading through his book and Daybreaker snuggling at his side. The glow from the tree giving off quite the beautiful scene. Minato's gaze leaves the book as his eyes look towards his lover, seeing her napping peacefully at his side. His eyes travels farther so that he can see what the rest of the Velvet Rooms residents are doing.
To his right he can see Dahlia, Messiah, Black Frost and Girimehkala playing UNO. Black Frost seems to be winning... for the 57th time.
Farther away he can see Adagio, Shiva and Daisoujou meditating near the pond within the flower field, with the Mitamas floating around them silently.
To his left he sees Maria watching over Sonata, Alice and Nekomata as they throw frisbee with Orthrus.
Farther away from them, he can see Cu Chulainn and Shiki-Ouji sparring against Aria and Matador, an epic battle that would be more fitting in a shounen anime rather than a JRPG made reality.

Minato feels an absolute feeling of peace and tranquility as he takes in his surrounding. Seeing the girls and his personas all getting along like this truelly makes him believe that they all have become one big family. This is love, this is happiness, this is...
"Wait, how long have we been in here now?" Minato questioned in his head.

As if it was a signal, a screeching sound of metal grinding against a rough surface stops all activity in the Velvet Room. The sound wakes Daybreaker from her nap, startling her slightly. She yawns cutely as she looks up and sees Minato looking into the distance with wide eyes. She follows his gaze and sees that he and everyone else in the room are looking down the dirt path that leads to the door that previously only lead to a black void.
Now however, the door is opened... and it leads to a dirt path within a dark forest.

Silence covers the entire room, many of them had become so used to living within this dimension that they had forgotten that they wanted to leave in the first place. Everyone eyes turn to look at their Master waiting for him to tell them what happens next.

"Well... I guess it's time leave. Let's make some last minute preparations, shall we?"

Deep within a large dark forest, all was silent. No animals, no monsters, no light. There was no wind, making even the plants completely silent. Through the silence, dark creatures made up of multiple shapes and sizes marched through the dark forest. Black blobs, piles of arms with swords, big headed babies, fat giants and big crawling hands, all made their way through the dark forest. Their hunger directed towards a peculiar town. Why someone thought it was a good idéa to build a town this close to a curse forest that was infamous for being filled with monsters, was beyond even the broken minds of the shadows.
Amongs them was one shadow that stood out from the rest. A large quadruple shape with three heads and six glowing eyes looked towards the town with pure hatred.

It growled "They don't deserve her kindness."

The shadows march towards Ponyville.

Chapter 7. Palace

View Online

Velvet Room

"O.K. That should be everything." I announced.

Me and the girls are standing at the entrance of the Velvet Room, making last minute checkups to see if we have everything we need for our unknown journey. Reading through the Le Grimoire for a final check on my personas.

Judgement: Messiah
Trait: Will of the Sword (Triples the effect of Charge and Concentrate)
Resist: Fire, Ice, Elec, Wind, Psy, Nuke
Reflect: Bless
Weak: Curse
Skills: Oratorio, Megidolaon, God's Hand, Almighty boost, Almighty amp, Magic ability, Pierce, Victory Cry

Lovers: Dahlia
Trait: Bargain Bolts (Reduce cost of Elec skills by 75%)
Resist: Elec, Wind, Bless
Weak: Gun
Skills: Thunder Reign, Maziodyne, Shock boost, Ailment boost, Elec boost, Elec amp, Ali Dance, Angelic Grace

Fool: Black Frost
Trait: Cocytos (Reduce cost of Ice skills by 75%)
Null: Nuke
Repel: Fire, Curse
Drain: Ice
Skills: Miracle Punch, Diamond Dust, Mabufudyne, Freeze boost, Ailment boost, Ice boost, Ice amp, Magic ability

Hanged: Orthrus
Trait: Drunken Passion (Reduce cost of Fire skills by 75%)
Resist: Nuke, Curse
Drain: Fire
Weak: Ice
Skills: Inferno, Maragidyne, Burn boost, Ailment boost, Fire boost, Fire amp, Ali Dance, Drain Ice

Magician: Nekomata
Trait: Foul Stench (Increase chance of inflicting Ailments)
Resist: Fire, Psy
Null: Wind
Weak: Elec
Skills: Lullaby, Eternal Rest, Panta Rhei, Sleep boost, Ailment boost, Wind boost, Wind amp, Repel Elec

Death: Matador
Trait: Positive Thoughts (Increase buff timers by 2 turns for self. Extends Auto- buffs for the entire party)
Resist: Phys, Gun
Null: Wind, Curse
Weak: Elec
Skills: Red Capote, Andalucia, Apt Pupil, Pierce, Auto-Mataru, Auto-Mamaka, Auto-Maraku, Auto-Masuku

Tower: Cu Chulainn
Trait: Will of the Sword
Resist: Phys, Gun
Null: Bless
Reflect: Wind
Weak: Ice
Skills: One-Shot Kill, Riot Gun, Gun boost, Gun amp, Apt pupil, Enduring Soul, Victory Cry, Repel Ice

Faith: Maria
Trait: Hallowed Spirit (Doubles amount of HP/SP restored to self)
Resist: Elec
Null: Wind
Drain: Bless
Weak: Fire
Skills: Diarahan, Salvation, Holy Benevolence, Holy Embrace, Holy Whisper, Insta-Heal, Invigorate 3, Drain Fire

Moon: Girimehkala
Trait: Immunity (Impart immunity against all ailments)
Resist: Fire
Null: Curse
Repel: Phys, Gun
Weak: Bless
Skills: Charge, Concentrate, Debilitate, Heat Riser, Regenerate 3, Invigorate 3, Spell Master, Drain Bless

Judgement: Shiva
Trait: Pagan Allure (Strengthen magic attacks by 50%)
Null: Ice, Bless, Curse
Repel: Elec
Drain: Psy
Skills: Pralaya, Magarudyne, Mapsiodyne, Mafreidyne, Pierce, Wind amp, Psy amp, Nuke amp

Heirophant: Daisoujou
Trait: Just Die (Reduce cost of instant death skills to 0)
Resist: Phys
Null: Fire, Bless
Weak: Curse
Skills: Samsara, Makougaon, Hama boost, Bless boost, Bless amp, Magic ability, Insta-Heal, Drain Curse

Death: Alice
Trait: Just Die
Resist: Psy, Nuke
Reflect: Curse
Weak: Bless
Skills: Die for Me!, Maeigaon, Mudo boost, Curse boost, Curse amp, Magic ability, Enduring Soul, Repel Bless

I decided that it would be better for Shiki-Ouji to stay behind because he will serve as a training persona for the future persona users. The Mitamas are also staying since they are better at emotional support rather than combat.
But besides my choice in personas, some of my choices in Skills and Traits might seem questionable.

First of all, Matador is my starter and serves as the Auto-Support and Multi-Phys persona. With the Passive skills he has, he starts of by giving the entire party a 1 level boost in all stats, followed by his signature Skill Red Capote (Raises Agility of the user to the MAX). Meaning I'll starts of any battle with full speed and max evasiveness, while utilising the skill Andalucia (4 to 12 hits of light Phys dmg to multiple foes).

Girimehkala serves as the Buff- and Debuff-Support of the party, as well as the Charge and Concentrate carrier. Charge doubles the damage of the next Phys or Gun skill used after activation. While Concentrate does the same but with magic.

Messiah and Cu Chulainn serves as the Maximum DMG Dealers of the party. The Trait: Will of the Sword triples the effect of Charge and Concentrate, combine that with Passive skills like Apt pupil (Increases user's Critical Rate) and Pierce (Phys attacks bypass most kinds of protective properties except for Repel, does not affect Gun), the results are devastating with God's Hand (Colossal Phys dmg to 1 foe), Megidolaon (Severe Almighty Dmg in a massive area), One-Shot Kill (Severe Gun dmg to 1 foe. High Critical rate) and Riot Gun (Severe Gun dmg to a wide area. High Critical rate).

Maria is the Healer... Pretty self explainatory. Combining the Trait: Hallowed Spirit with her unique Passives: Holy Embrace (Restore 25% of max HP each turn in battle) and Holy Whisper (Restore 15% of max HP & 15 SP each turn in battle), along with Invigorate 3, and you pretty much have an unkillable healer that never runs out of SP for your party.

Dahlia, Black Frost and Orthrus serve the purpose of dealing elemental ailments with their respective element and to deal damage with said element. Also, I just gave Black Frost Miracle Punch because I think the move is funny, just a sucker punch that deals low damage but has near guarantee Critical Rate because his LUCK stat is Maxed out.

Nekomata is for dealing the Sleep ailment, which is in my opinion the best Ailment since it always last for 3 or more turns and guarantees Critical Hits and Technical damage. Panta Rhei is there to give her a damage dealing skill and Eternal Rest is to be used if given the opportunity, since it will Insta-kill all targets inflicted with Sleep.

Shiva is primarly meant to focus on dealing Technical damage by following up with the magic skills he possess. But also to utilies his unique skill Pralaya, which deals severe Phys damage to a large area with a high chance to Insta-kill. He is a good mix of both magic and muscle.

And finally there is Alice and Daisoujou, which serve as the Curse and Bless wielders and to utilies their unique skills: Die for Me! (High chance of instantly killing all foes. Curse-type) and Samsara (High chance of instantly killing all foes. Bless-type). Combine that with Hama boost (Increase success rate of instant death by Bless skills) and Mudo boost (Increase success rate of instant death by Curse skills), you have the two perfect personas for taking out mobs of enemies.

After my last check up, I open the Le Grimoire and all my personas burst in blue flames and transform into their cards before flying into the book. Satisfied, I close the book and turn around to address the girls.
I gave each of the girls one of the weapons that I got from the Merchant. Daybreaker has the sword Hinokagutsuchi (High chance to Burn), Adagio recieved the great axe Fleurs du Mal (Ma+6 / High chance to Dizzy), Aria got the Dainaraka Whip (High chance to Freeze) and Sonata carries the slingshot Sudarshana (High chance to Dizzy).
I look into the book one more time to check the builds for their personas.

Daybreaker
Empress: Durga
Trait: Solar Tyrant (Strengthen magic attacks by 50%)
Resist: Curse
Null: Nuke, Bless
Drain: Fire
Weak: Ice
Skills: Thunder Inferno, Mafreidyne, Concentrate, Mamakaja, Shock boost, Fire amp, Nuke amp, Evade Ice

Adagio Dazzle
Devil: Vouivre
Trait: Gloomy Child (Activates all equipped special weather passives in normal weather)
Null: Ice, Bless
Drain: Elec
Weak: Fire
Skills: Bloodbath, Maziodyne, Mabufudyne, Shock boost, Freeze boost, Ailment boost, Ambient Aid, Climate Decorum

Aria Blaze
Emperor: Forneus
Trait: Bloodstained Eyes (Increase allies' evasion against foes inflicted with ailments)
Null: Psy, Curse
Drain: Ice
Weak: Elec
Skills: Wage War, Eigaon, Mapsiodyne, Marakukaja, Curse amp, Psy amp, Magic ability, Evade Elec

Sonata Dusk
Lovers: Undine
Trait: Savior Bloodline (Reduce cost of Healing skills by 50%)
Null: Elec, Bless
Drain: Ice
Weak: Wind
Skills: Kougaon, Magarudyne, Mediarahan, Samarecarm, Bless amp, Wind amp, Magic ability, Evade Wind

I gave the girls partial control of the Velvet Room to allow them to make some adjustments to their builds before we left. All I can say is that I'm proud that they took my lessons seriously and made some interesting builds. I'm especially impressed with how Adagio utilises the Trait: Gloomy Child. Combining it with Ambient Aid (Greatly increase inflicting rate of all Ailments under a rainy day) and all the Elemental Ailment boosters she has, it almost guarantees that they will always land.
Since they had gotten a bit too used on walking around lightly dressed, I gave them all some new clothes to make them more presentable.
Adagio is the oldest of the sirens, I gave her clothes that match Margaret's outfit from P4.

Aria is the middle sibling, so I gave her Elizabeth's outfit from P3.

And Sonata being the youngest, it only made sense to give her Lavenza's outfit from P5R.

Lastly I felt like giving Daybreaker a new outfit, I wanted go back with her Goddess of the Sun theme just to spoil her a little and make her feel special because I love her.
Buuut, then it hit me.

"Wait a second," I say as we pause at the entrance, "you can't walk around like that."

"Why? You just spent time making me this outfit and now you want me to change?" Daybreaker asked, confused.

"It is a bit too revealing now when I think about it, and I might have been thinking with something else but my brain while I made the outfit, but that's not the issue." I quickly answer, ignoring her blush.

"Then what's the problem? I want to get a move on already." Aria asked, annoyed.

"You're an alicorn. For all we know there's only supposed to be two of you." I explained.
"A third one showing up that looks very similar to Celestia is going to draw some unwanted attention."

Everyone pauses and takes on their own thinking poses, brainstorming for idéas. I can just hear the elevator music playing in all our heads. Eventually Adagio opens her mouth.

"Do you know any transformation spells that allow you to take on a disguise?"

"Pfff, do I know any transformation spells?" Daybreaker says in a sarcastic tone.

"..."

"Do yo-?"

"OF COURSE I DO!" Daybreaker cuts off Adagio's follow up question while everyone else stared unamused by her attempt at humor.

Daybreaker's horn begins to glow as she concentrates her magic to cast the spell. The glow brightens and she is covered with light that soon reveals a pegasus mare that looks a lot like Daybreaker, but a bit shorter and closer to Adagio's height.
Her skin remains white, but her wings have gotten smaller and her mane and tail have changed from being burning flames, to simply being an fire orange with golden yellow streaks. Her previously dark sclera has turned white and her amber yellow irises are instead a fire red. Instead of her previous outfit, she now wears a black and blue dress to fit in with the rest of us. (If you know, you know.)
The transformation leaves us all shocked and impressed, but as our sight go down her body, it doesn't take us long to see something odd about her new form. Sure she's now a beautiful, yet muscular pegasus mare and she's shorter. But a certain part of her seemed to have stayed the same.

"Ummm, why are your boobs still huge?" Sonata asked innocently.

"Because I know Minato loves them and I want to keep my title as the biggest one among us." Daybreaker says with a smirk that ticks of the sirens slightly.

"But it looks ridiculous!" Aria exclaims frustrated.
"Pegasi are suppose to be the lightest of the three pony tribes. There is no way that there exist another pegasus out their with a rack that size."

"Don't jinx it!" Adagio shout.

"I believe we are all getting distracted here." I say trying to remove the tension.
"Since you've taken a new form, a different name might be necessary. What about Daylight?"

"Daylight?" Daybreaker asked with a headtilt.

"That way I can still call you by your nickname that you love so much."

She blushes and quickly answers: "That is acceptable."

Without further ado, we waved goodbye to Shiki-Ouji, the Mitamas and the Velvet Room itself and walked through the door.

As the last of our group pass through, the screeching sound of metal grinding against a rough surface follows. All turn around to see the door close and then burst into blue flames. Dissappearing from sight and showing no signs of ever being there earlier.

"I'm going to miss that place." Sonata said with sad tone.

"The Velvet Room exist between Dream and Reality. I can take you there whenever you fall asleep, so you won't miss it for long." Minato spoke with a reassuring tone.
"Now, according to what we saw through the screen on the Moonlight Tree, we are right now in the Everfree Forest and if we follow the trail we are currently standing on, we should pass by Celestia and Luna's old castle and eventually reach a town called Ponyville."

"Well then, what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Aria said with newfound energi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxwVNQH-GH8

"I'm bored." Aria whines.

"It's been 5 minutes." Sonata says.

"No, we've been walking for like 30 minutes now." Adagio explains.

"Huh? That's not what the timecard said." Sonata spoke confused.

"The what?" The other two said more confused.

"Comedy aside, Aria does have a point." Minato adds.

The Everfree is what you would imagine it to be. A dark, gloomy looking forest that sends shivers down your spine. The stems on the trees looking nearly black in color, deformed to the point that they look like scary faces in the dark. The tree crowns blocking out any light from the sky, making it impossible to tell whether or not it's day- or nighttime. Bizarre plants that can't be found anywhere else. But out of all of that, what should be the biggest anti-tourist attraction are all the monsters that live within the forest.
But that's just it, there's nothing. The forest is completely quiet. No sounds from either insect, small critters or bigger predators. There isn't even any wind to rustle the leafs and plantlife. Nothing.

"The forest seems different, it's even more unsettling than how it was 500 hundred years ago, and way too quiet." Daylight speaks with concern.

"It is possible that the shadows are the reason for the Everfree's silence." Minato reasons.
"But that makes it even wierder as to why we haven't encountered any shadows yet."

"Maybe they're all gathered in there?" Sonata exclaims.

"In wher- Dear Holy Messiah! What is that?!"

"Is that your old castle Day?" Adagio asked slackjawed.

"No, that's impossible." Daylight says equally shocked.
"Where did all of this come from?! That lake, the pier, the town, even those mountains looks out of place!"

While the girls take in what is infront of them, Minato has fallen deep into his thoughts.
'Where are we? This doesn't look anything like the Sisters Castle. Even the atmosphere feels wierd... Wait the atmosphere?'
Minato looks up into the sky and notice that something clearly isn't right. The sky is clouded, with barely any stars visible and the moon shining in a ghostly light, with lightning jumping inbetween the clouds in an unnatural manner. He looks back to where they came from and notice that the forest and the trail they followed has also changed. The previously nearly black trees have taken a more night blue appearance and the dirt road has been replaced with stone. It is at that moment that Minato realised where they are.

"Girls," he caught their attention, "I think we might have accidently walked into a Palace."

"What?" They all said confused.

"A Palace is a manifestation of distortion, strong negative or corrupt thoughts that warp the perceptions of people into a hazard for themselves and others within the Collective Unconscious. Particularly strongly distorted individuals manifest personal Palaces that is solely inhabited by their Shadow Self."

"So does that mean that we are still in the Velvet Room or some sort of extension of it." Daylight asked with interest and worry.

"The Velvet Room is it's own dimension, existing between the real world and the world known as the Collective Unconscious or simply the Cognitive World. It is the realm where the shadows spawn from and exist parallell to our world. I believe that what has happened to the Everfree forest is that it has been absorbed by the Cognitive World and become an extended gateway to that world."

The girls are now wide eyed with shock, they had hoped that they would finally return home, only to end up in a world that is suppose to be a more twisted version of their world. The world in which only shadows belong, a world of corruption, desire and negativety.

"So what should we do now?" Aria asked with a mix of worry and excitement.
"Should we go in there or what?"

"Going into a Palace completely blind is a bad idéa no matter how strong or skilled you are. We aren't stuck here, we just have to go back and take another route in order to reach civilisation."

With that said, they all begin to make their way back to where they came from, in order to find another way around. They cast one last glance to what they witnessed and asked themselves one question.

Whose Palace is that anyway?

They eventually find a route that leads them to a rope bridge that allows them to continue on their journey. Making their way through the forest with their guards up and doing whatever they can to pass the time.

"I spy with my little eye something dark and spooky." Sonata rhymed.

"Is it the whole forest?" Aria grumbled.

"Damn, you're good at this."

They have been walking for nearly two hours now since they encountered the Palace. They've past a river that used to be home to a certain sea serpent, but he was nowhere in sight. They haven't encountered any creatures of the Everfree, no Manticore, no Cockatrice, no Cragadile, no Hydra, they haven't even encountered any Timber Wolfs. Keeping their eyes and ears open for any surprises in the form of either shadows or monsters from the forest, but the only thing they've encountered so far, is more and more of absolutely nothing.

"Okay, now I'm more annoyed than creeped out." Adagio complained.
"Where are the shadows? Even if most of them are within the Palace, there should still be some stragglers crawling around."

"It is quite bizarre that we haven't even seen any low level or formless shadows. Like Adagio said, even if the big and strong ones are in the Palace, there should be some small ones roaming around." Daylight supports.

"Hmmm," Minato stops midstep, catching the attention of the others, "I have a bad feeling about this."

Suddenly as if the world was listening to him, Minato and everyone else attention was caught by a distant sound, a sound that all of them haven't heard in all their time in the Velvet Room. The sound of something that confirmed Minato's worries.

The distant sound of screaming.

"Oh no." Minato whispers with a hint of despair.

Without anymore words, the group doesn't hesitate to rush through the rest of the forest. Without slowing down, they pass the trees and bushes, while being cautious for a certain blue flower, they eventually reach the edge of the forest were they enter a dirt road on grassland and get their first real view at civilisation.

When you think of the town called Ponyville, you usually think of a rustic-looking town with a couple of more colorful houses here and there. While all of that is still there, there are some more modern things and others that look slightly out of place. There are telephone booths and street lights lighting up the dark night, along with a big wall made from bricks and wooden logs surrounding the entire town. Said wall also happens to look like it has seen better days, as it has been brutally broken down in multiple places by something huge and violent, creating new entrances for the towns unwanted guests.
Our groups attention is brought back to reality as they hear the more audible sound of screams of panic and fear, followed by distorted roars and gurgling noises from shadows.

"Let's split up and try to save as many as we can!" Minato yells out.
"Adagio, Aria and Sonata, you go towards the west side of town, while me and Day go towards the east."

"Right." answered Daylight.

"Got it." Adagio followed.

"Okay!" Sonata cheered.

"Finally some action!" Aria roared with excitement.

Minato summons Matador to give everyone an immediate boost with his Auto-Skills, they split up and run towards their destinations with haste. It doesn't take Minato and Daylight long to run into their first pack of shadows, which appears as pink stripped orbs with blue masks at their backside and a giant mouth with a long tounge at the front.

The shadows don't stand a chance as Daylight summon Durga and blast them with Thunder Inferno, creating a tornado of fire and lightning that swallow and disintegrates the shadows to nothingness.

Further ahead in town, on the same road that Minato and Daylight, two unicorn mares and one pegasus mare was running for their lives.
The first of the unicorns has brilliant amber coat and horn, moderate cyan eyes and a vivid crimson mane and tail with brilliant yellow stripes. She wears rather bad girl-type clothing, with a orange shirt with her cutiemark of a red and yellow sun on the chest, covered by a black leather jacket, magenta skirt and punk rock boots.
The second unicorn has near white light gray skin coat and horn, moderate azura eyes with light cornflower bluish gray eyeshadow and a stylish moderate indigo mane and tail. She wears a white shirt with black sleeves and her cutiemark of three diamonds on the chest, tight fitting jeans and purple high heels.
Lastly is the pegasus that accompanies them. She has a pale, light grayish gold coat and wings, moderate cyan eyes and long pale, light grayish rose mane and tail. Her clothes consists of a forest green turtle neck sweater, a sky blue pants and light green slipper.

All three of them were running for their lives, away from the shadow that was chasing them. The shadow appear as thin lanky arms put together in a pile to mimic a spider-like body. Six of the arms were used for walking, five wield short swords and one hold the blue mask that it used as a head.

"STAY AWAY FROM US!" the white unicorn yells in panic as she fires a blast of magic at the shadow, hitting it on the mask and causing it to shriek in pain.
"I got it!"

"Don't stop, keep running Rarity!" the bacon haired one yelled.

But that one second that Rarity's attention was taken away, the shadow recovered and rushed forward with three of it's swords raised high.

"Rarity, watch out!" the butteryellow pegasus yelled as she pushed her friend out of the way.

The shadow delivered a downward slash with all three swords and tore through her sweater, turning it to shredds and drawing blood.

"Fluttershy! Are you ok?!"

"I'm fine Sunset, it's just a light cut." Fluttershy hastely answered Sunset's worry and began to stand up only to fall to her knees from the pain.

"Oh darling, your sweater!" Rarity gasped.

"Rarity! Fluttershy! Pay attention!"

The world seem to slow down to a crawl as Sunset runs towards her friends. Rarity and Fluttershy's can only watch in wide eyed horror as 5 swords fall towards them with the intent to skewer them. Sunset tries to create a barrier around her friends, but the blades go through it like it was made of wet paper. Sunset's memories of yesterdays events flash in front of her eyes. How she and Spike tried to tell Twilight that the Princess knows what she's doing. How they tried to convince her to go to Moondancer's get together. How she refused to socialize with the townsfolk. Pinkie Pie running away with a gasp, the brunch with Applejack's family, Rainbow Dash clearing the sky in 10 seconds, Rarity being a drama queen, their awkward encounter with Fluttershy and finally the party were they all got to know eachother.
Her two new friends were about to be killed right in front of her, and she can't do anything to stop it from happening. She closes her eyes as tears begin to form, begging for anypony or anyone to save her friends.

"Red Capote!"

Huh?

"Andalucia!" something passes her in blinding speed.

All at once, the 5 arms that held 5 swords were sent flying away from the shadows they were connected to. The shadows roar and screech in pain and panic but was then silenced after someone shouted "Mafreidyne!" and neon cyan beams of energy are fired and burns the creature to ash and black mist.

Sunset turns around and sees a tall pegasus mare and right next to a towering figure with 10 arms that burn with cyan fire. She turns back and sees a young stallion with a blond mane standing in front of Fluttershy and Rarity protectively. Next to him is a figure that looks like a skeleton wearing a green uniform while carrying a red cape in his right hand and a saber in his left.

Minato turns around to face the ones he just saved, his eyes glowing in golden light that mystifies those watching him. His gaze goes down towards Fluttershy and sees her injured state.

"Your hurt." He kneels and opens the Le Grimiore.
"Persona change, Maria."

As he speaks, Matador bursts in blue flames that causes the ones watching to gasp in shock. The shock is then replace with suprise as they see a marble white female that looks like a sculpture with floating golden disks around her.

"Diarahan!" Minato commands and Maria releases a holy green light from her hands that cover Fluttershy. Her clothes remain ripped, but her wounds dissappear in the light completely, with no bloodstains in sight.

"That's incredible!" Rarity gasp.
"How did you-?"

Minato doesn't let her finish her question as he takes off his jacket and gives it to Fluttershy to cover herself. Since it seemed like the shadow destroyed more than just her sweater and revealed that Aria was VERY wrong about pegasi being light weights.

"*Eep!*" she squeaks out and takes Minato's jacket with a quiet "Thank you..."

"Day, keep going and see if you can find anymore civilians, we'll meet the others in the center of town."

"Got it, come on Durga." without another word, Daylight and her persona are on their way.

"What are those things?" Sunset asked, curious about the persona.

"I can explain later, but for now we need to move. The shadows are all over town."

No more words need to be said, everyone gets up and begin to make their way to the center of Ponyville.
The girls all give curious glimpses to Minato from time to time as they run, curious and mystified about their knight in stylish clothing, but Minato ignores them for now as his head is filled with questions.

Why are the shadows attacking like this?

Who owns that palace we saw earlier?

How much different is Equestria because of the shadows?

How could Aria have been so wrong about pegasi chest sizes?

And most of all...

Why is Sunset Shimmer here?!

Author's Notes:

Why is the Publish button right next to the Edit button?!

It isn't necesarry to remember everything about the builds for the personas, it was more just to give out a general idéa of what each persona is capable of.

I want to point out however that not all of the builds for Minato's personas are possible in any of the games. Like I mentioned in a comment a couple of chapters ago, this story combines the skills from all Persona and Shin Megami Tensei games.

Pierce is a skill that only showed up in SMT III: NOCTURNE, Devil Survivor and Devil Survivor 2.

Also, you might have noticed that a character has been removed from the Tags. I'm afraid that what I had originally planned for Trixie sadly won't happen.
I had planned to have her be the one to bring Minato and the Gang to Ponyville with her wagon. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that her role seemed kind of forced and would have no effect on were the story was going, making her appearance pointless and unnecessary. So I replaced her with Celestia's tag since her role is going to be more important. Trixie might still appear in the future, but her role is going to be more of a side character, rather than a main character.

Links: Palace, Shadow Self, Cognition, Slipping Hablerie, Arcana Magician Shadow

Chapter 8. Shingeki no Shadow (unfinished) + Important announcement!

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Ponyville

Golden Oak Library

"Come on! Come on! Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?!" a panic induced lavender colored unicorn mare with a dark blue mane with purple and pink streak, said as she tore through the library that she and two others had recently moved into.
She wore a white dress shirt, dark blue skirt, black stocking and shoes. She was currently rushing through every book in the Golden Oak Library, looking for clues on the location of the Elements of Harmony, as if her life depends on it. That is because her life did depend on it! Every window, door and other openings were being swarmed by shadows of varying sizes, trying to get inside and grab her.

"Can you find that stupid book already Twilight?!" a purple and green teenage dragon shouted in panic, running from window to window as he *clonked* another shadow with his frying pan. He wore blue shorts, a dark purple hoodie and sandals.

"I'm looking everywhere but I can't find it!"

"Did you check the E section!?"

"Oh, here it is!" Twilight said suprised as she just found the book, under E.

"Are you kidding me Twilight!" Spike shouted enraged.

Suddenly, a window from the second floor was broken and a shadow shaped like a giant white glove with a mask head on top fell in.

It instantly stood up and began crawling towards Twilight like a demonic spider, causing the unicorn to freeze in place. But before it could get too close, a male pegasus with brilliant gamboge coat and two toned blue mane dropped down and stabbed the shadow in the mask with his spear, causing it to dissappear in black smoke. He wore enchanted golden armor, similar to the romans, with the Canterlot Royal Guard sigil on it.

"You found the book! Now read it so we can get out of here!" Flash Sentry said as another hand shaped shadow crawled towards him.
"I'll hold them off, you figure out were we need to go from here!"

"Here! I found it!" Twilight said with glee.
"The Elements of Harmony were last seen in the Castle of the Two Sisters, located in the Everfree Forest!"

"Oh, that just perfect! It's just located in one of the most dangerous areas in all of Equestria." Flash yelled with sarcasm as he stabbed another shadow.
"Aim for their masks, if they're destroyed they turn to smoke."

"Hmm," Spike thought as another shadow popped it's head through the window, "I wonder what happens of you rip it off."

"Wait, Spike, don't!" Twilight screamed, but it was too late as Spike ripped off the mask, causing black smoke to be released from it's face. The shadow's body began to bloat and bubble, turning into liquid and grow in size, taking on a new larger appearance.

"Well that didn't help at all." Spike spoke with a deadpan as the other two frowned at him.

"S-Stay away! Go a-away!" a pale magenta early teen earth filly shreaked in fright. She had a pale violet mane with white streaks, brilliant blue eyes and a tiara on her head. She was wearing a golden yellow jacket with a black shirt underneath, a light gray skirt and expensive looking golden yellow boots. She and her friend was being backed into a corner by a shadow.

Her friend was a cornflower gray early teen earth filly with a two toned lighter gray mane and a pair of blue framed glasses in front of her moderate violet eyes. She wore a light violet dress shirt, dark pink skirt and expensive looking purple boots. She also had a pearl necklace.
The shadow that was baking them into a corner looked like a giant japanese rhinoceros beetle with a crown on it's pronotum and it's mask on the horn.

"Diamond," the gray filly wimpered out, "what are we suppose to do?"

"Silver Spoon, thank you for being my friend." Diamond Tiara said as she hugs her friend and close her eyes just as the shadow began to pull back it's head to bash them with it's horn. But before it could.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK9Y1EqjDpY

"Bang! Bang! Bang!" a young but still adult sounding voice shouted.

Three small and faster than the eye can see projectiles, impact the shell of the shadow. Making it turn away from the fillies and towards the one who dared attack it. The teenage fillies followed the voice and saw a girl holding a giant slingshot taking aim at the shadow.
The shadow shakes it's head before it immediately charges towards the girl, but it seemed to sway and zig-zag slightly in it's movements, as if it was dizzy. The girl just smirk and lazely leans her slingshot to her right shoulder, before she holds out her left hand and a the Lovers arcana appears in her palm in blue flames.

"Show time, Undine!" she shouts as she crushes the card in her palm. Water suddenly appears around her and splashes to form a female creature with pointy ears and red eyes.

Her summoning seem to have caught the attention of some other smaller shadows.
This included shadows that looked like living wigs wearing crowns

and some that looked like masked birds with royal dress collars.

The shadows all close in on Sonata from both high and low, the beetle is still clearly dizzy and the others are rushing side by side with it. Sonata only smirks as this just makes it easier for her to take all of them out all at once.

"Magarudyne!" she shouts as Undine stretches it's arms forward, green swirls quickly forms in her transparant arms before both her palms explode like a cannon, releasing powerful gusts of wind with multiple light green twisters, catching all the shadows and launching them into the air.
The shadows are spun around and crash into eachother, resulting in many being crushed by the collisions and dissolving to black smoke. The giant beetle shadow is launched skywards so high, that it passes the clouds. Sonata, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon all look up to were it dissappeared before it eventually came back down like a meteor and crashes into the ground, forming a giant dust cloud along with black smoke. Giving the signal that the fall killed it.

"Easy peasy lemon squeezy!" Sonata says while doing a V sign with her right hand, while Undine is mirroring her from behind.

Unfortunately, Sonata was unaware that her attack had not killed all of the shadows and one of the eagles was currently falling towards her like a bird of prey diving towards it's prey.
Luckily however, someone intervened.

"Eigaon!"

A black and red fireball collided with the shadow mid-air right as it was about to hit Sonata behind her head. The collision sent it flying towards a building wall, before it's body was consumed by the flames and turned to smoke.

"Thanks for the save Ari!" Sonata squeeled.

Aria casually walks towards Sonata with the Dainaraka Whip in her right hand and Forneus circling around her from above. A shapeless blob-like shadow crawls towards her faster than one would think possible, but she simply slaps it with her whip, causing it to freeze before she stomps on it and shatters it like glass.

"You need to be more aware of your surroundings Nata," Aria scolds her little sister as Forneus disappear in blue flames, "me and the others won't always be available."

"But I know you'll always have my back when you are." Sonata says with a teasing tone as she leans closer towards Aria.

The older siren blushes before crossing her arms and quietly says "Shut up" while looking away.
Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon finally shook themselves out of their shock and approuched the sirens.

"Who are you two?" Silver asked in disbelief.

"We're sister obviously." Sonata answered like it was obvious.

The fillies were going to say more, but a sudden scrambling noise from an alley further away caught the groups attention. All turn towards the sound and sees several shadows rushing out of the alleyway, pushing carbage cans out of the way while the bigger ones were topling over the smaller ones. They gurgled and growled with a small hint of words behind the thoughts that they spawned from, negative thoughts of shattered dreams and broken hearts that would make anyone feel worse just from their imagination alone.
Aria smirks as she sees them scrambling around, she brings out the Emperor arcana and shatters it with a punch.

"We got this," Aria speaks with a voice filled with confidence and power, "Forneus!"

Author's Notes:

Important message below, so please read it all the way through.

If any of you remember, or bothered, I said a long time ago that I’ve lost interest in this story, or at least the original concept. But I decided to at least post how long I got with this chapter before I officially cancel this fic. There are multiple reasons as to why I’m doing so?
First off, this was one of my first fics I made and as I’ve read a lot of fanfiction and grown as a writer, my standards have gone up a lot and this story, the displaced genre and OP-OC/MC’s just aren’t appealing to me anymore, at least not as much as it was in the past.
Second, I started forgetting important details while I was writing this fic. Like, I nearly forgot, the ponies in this story are level 4 anthro with feet. Meaning they have human faces, but pony ears, tails, wings and horns. Does anyone else that read this story a while back remember that? Because for me, as the author, forgetting such a detail is a big sign that the love just isn’t there anymore.

Third, I was also starting to lose some of the love I previously had for MLP in general. So I decided that the best thing to do was to take a break from it. Cause back when I was writing stories here, it was literally the only thing I was doing as a hobby, and it made me depressed since I had no family members or friends that shared the hobby or love for MLP. So I decided that I needed to separate myself from it for a while and broaden my horizon, so to speak.

I will say however, this isn’t the end for me as a writer here on this site. I’ve come back, but I’m going to change somewhat.
This story is going to get a revamp or rewrite, eventually, called The Messiah of Cantelot High, and as the name suggest, it’s going to take place in the Equestria Girls world instead, and it will also be a lot simpler with less things to remember, as I felt and have grown to hate crossover fanfics that add WAY too much in the beginning of the story, like list of abilities and powers that the MC possess, like they are giving the readers homework to remember as the story progresses.

I’m also going to make it clear, that I have no plan for a schedule for my uploads, I will upload a new chapter when I feel like it. As I have more than one hobby now, that being miniature painting and just reading. I’m also studying things like History, Mythology, Folklore, Philosophy, and Archaeology, and I’m going to try to use writing as a way to improve the writing in my assignments and hopefully, turn it to something that I will enjoy again, to let my creativity flow.

I’ve also learned or rather discovered, that I have “High-functioning autism”. Which isn't really an official diagnosis. But rather an informal one people use when they talk about people with autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, who can speak, read, write, and handle basic life skills like eating and getting dressed. In other words, they can live independently while still being within the spectrum.
For those curious, here’s a list of some of the common signs adults with High-functioning autism may show.

Inability to maintain eye contact without discomfort
Trouble assessing social cues
Anxiety in social settings
Has a hard time with the nuances of verbal communication and trouble understanding jokes and sarcasm
Rituals and restrictive habits
Easily overloaded by sensory input or overwhelmed
Trouble with making decisions
Adherence to strict routines
Noticing sensory input (sounds, smells, etc.) that others don’t
Difficulty speaking in a two-way conversation
Ability to “hyperfocus” on work or a specific interest
Experiencing emotions more intensely than others
Frustration with even small changes or disruptions
Sensitivity to light, noise, or smell
Difficulty with transitions; frequently late
Would prefer to listen and observe than speak and interact
Often accused of being rude or blunt.
May have perfectionism in certain areas.
Prefers to work at home or away from others
Avoids stressful social situations such as parties
May be seen as “selfish” due to being overly concerned with oneself.
Has a hard time tracking when more than one conversation is occurring at once
Has a tendency to take things literally.

All of these signs describe me perfectly as a person, as I have an extremely difficult time when it comes to change, don’t like social interactions and have difficulties to when it comes to paying attention and focusing on things that don’t interest me. So when I suddenly start to lose interest in one franchise, obviously, it’s going to become difficult for me to continue writing.
But, after my long break, I’ve finally returned to MLP fanfics and I will try to update some of my other story at some point in the future. But as I’m a perfectionist, it may still take time until I decide to upload. So please be patient with me.
But for now, this is the last chapter I will upload of Equestrias Wild Card and hopefully, the readers of this fic will understand. Thank you all for taking the time in reading this long message and I hope to see you soon in one of my other fics.