I have not played Persona 5 since the western release of Royal. I plan to start again shortly. For uh. Research purposes. I guess. I'll try to write a couple chapters a week.
-Raoul
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Ren's breath hitched.
'It's here again,' he thought as his finger hovered over the button.
'Better get it over with!' Pixie chirped.
'That sounds familiar. Hee ho hee!' Jack O' Lantern chimed in. 'Pyro-Jack is also an acceptable name!'
'You should tell your friends that you're going somewhere at the least. They deserve that much.' Arsene advised solemnly. 'You were just scolded for keeping things from them.'
But what Arsene kept from his other self was: 'And I don't want to be yelled at by Scathach and Carmen again…'
Taking a deep breath, Ren looked up at his friends. He was surprised to see them looking at him in concern.
"What?" he asked nervously.
"What are you hiding now?" Shiho asked with narrowed eyes.
"Hmmm??" Ann asked with a sickly sweet smile.
'Your secrets aren't hidden very well, Trickster!' Silky giggled in his mind.
Sighing, Ren rubbed his face roughly.
"You don't have to tell us if it's private..." Ann awkwardly decided.
"No, it's okay," Ren muttered. "I just don't really know how to put it without looking crazy."
"Crazier than going into a pervert's mind and fighting a massive demon on a toilet…?" Ryuji gave him a glance.
"Speaking of which, I looked that thing up and I'm pretty sure that was supposed to be Belphegor. It's a demon from the Ars Goetia, which is another can of worms. Anyway, it represents the deadly sin of Sloth. It supposedly tempts people by encouraging laziness and procrastination. Oh, and get rich quick schemes as well." Ren slipped into lecture mode.
"DON'T CHANGE THE TOPIC AGAIN!" The group yelled.
.
.
.
.
"…What?" the group was stunned upon hearing the story of the Velvet Room.
"Yeah, I don't get it either!" Ren threw up his hands in defeat. "I don't like that place."
Morgana had been strangely silent during the entire story. Never once gasping or anything.
"That doesn't sound right…" Morgana muttered with a slight frown.
'It does not.' Zorro confirmed.
'Do you know something, Zorro?'
Zorro didn't respond.
"So you think the creepy old man and the teeny guards are behind the Metaverse navigator?" Ryuji asked after he recovered his wits. "That sounds really sketchy, dude."
"Don't call them that. They look cute, but I just know they're terrifying," Ren said with an extremely serious expression.
"Pffft." Ryuji chuckled.
"So, do you plan on going back to that room since it appeared on the fast travel list?" Ann asked. "I didn't see that when we were looking at the map."
"Neither did I," Shiho confirmed.
"Well, I guess I'll go." Ren declared with great theatrical courage!
The group clapped a bit, but Ren hadn't actually left yet.
Sighing as he saw their bored faces, he gave up on stalling and tapped the button.
---
Rattling chains, a cool breeze coming from the gaps in the concrete. The Velvet Room was unsettling to Ren as always. He carefully approached the bars, grasping them and squinting forward.
"Welcome back, Trickster."
Igor's voice echoed through the room, discordant and strange as it was before.
"Apologies, I was... preoccupied previously. The twins filled me in on explaining the power of the wild card to you," he continued unhurriedly. "I was also surprised to see that you told your friends about the Velvet Room. Although you do not share an arcana bond with the one you call Panther, I have made an exception to allow you to tell them."
Ren felt a chill down his spine knowing that he was being watched.
"Worry not," Igor chuckled. "I cannot see or hear exactly what you are doing, but since you were in the Metaverse, I was able to grasp certain parts of the topic."
"Thank you, Igor... sir," Ren said carefully.
"I must depart once more, but the twins will help you now that you are ready to use this room for its purpose," Igor stated before snapping his fingers and vanishing.
The twins appeared on either side of the cell as Ren's shoulders dropped, the tension leaving his body.
"Greetings, inmate." Justine said in her usual flat tone.
"Hmph!" Caroline appeared to still be angry from before.
'A beautiful rose for a thorny lady!' Arsene declared theatrically.
Suddenly Caroline gave a creepy smile. "Today is going to be a lot of fun."
"Now that you have a better grasp of your wild card, we will be discussing Persona fusions," Justine continued. "As a fool, you can use ALMOST any Persona."
"Not all of them would be open to listening to your sad excuse for negotiation, so fusion is necessary," Caroline scoffed.
"Almost all of them?" Ren asked.
"You don't want your soul to explode, now do you?" Justine asked with a raised brow.
"Enough! Let's get started!" Caroline demanded.
Both twins turned away from Ren and approached the back of the room, stopping next to a pair of guillotines.
Turning back to face Ren, Caroline gave a sadistic grin.
"Summon Arsene and that Pixie."
Arsene and Pixie appeared next to Ren.
"We will be fusing the two of them into a new Persona," Justine revealed.
!!!!!
"Relax mon ami, I will always be with you. I am thou." Arsene's voice gently sounded.
"Yeah, don't worry about it!" Pixie said with a grin as she sat on Ren's shoulder. "Just keep listening."
"Fear not, inmate. You will be able to summon both of them again. For a fee," Justine continued.
"To begin the fusion process, we will be executing your Persona," Caroline revealed with a smile.
Ren immediately declined.
"Execution is not the death of a Persona. They all exist within the sea of souls," Justine reassured, though it didn't do much to relieve Ren of his worry.
"Approach, you two!"
"Are you both sure?" Ren asked Arsene and Pixie worriedly.
"I am thou. We will meet once more." The two said in unison as they approached the guillotine.
Caroline and Justine took the two into a separate room. They returned shortly with the two Personas wrapped in burlap sacks.
They led the two to the guillotine, gently pushing them to their knees. Well, Justine was gentle. Caroline essentially slapped Arsene to the ground.
Seeing the two kneel before a guillotine made Ren feel sick. He couldn't describe the feeling, not at all.
'They should not kneel. Ever,' he thought.
The twins approached the sides of the guillotine. Locking eyes, they nodded and pulled the lever, causing the blades to fall.
Bracing for the worst, Ren forced himself to watch the process. Thankfully, there was no blood. No gore. The two just… shattered into motes of light before reforming into a familiar mask. The mask gently spun before lighting up and turning into a floating pot.
Ren glared at the twins. He felt no connection to the pot at all!
Ren was about to yell when a blue blob poked its head out of the floating pot.
"Me Agathion! I will be your mask, Trickster!"
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