Darkening of a Soul (Phoebe, awakening)

[Tristan Carter]

Tristan had been exploring again. He was getting used to the overall layout of the Shadowlands, if nothing else. He wasn't going to be able to give detailed directions on where to go anytime soon, but he was able to get around fine as far as he knew.

Which is why he was slightly confused when he stumbled on a new area. Every time I get used to this place... He was getting sick of it. But when something caught his attention, he knew it wouldn't be good. So he wandered towards the sounds of a raging battle, just over a hill.

A person was climbing to their feet as a Persona was fighting off a shadow. The Persona, a brain with tentacles, wasn't doing so well on its own. So Tristan rushed in to help the young boy, who likely was just awakening.

[Phoebe Minola]

Phoebe had been busy trying to extract some books from a wrecked book-case inside a half-destroyed shop that was likely a bookshop in the past. That's when she heard the scuffle and din of a fight. For a moment she'd thought of leaving it be but then she wondered. What if someone was in need of aid?

She ditched the books and ran outside. She paused for a moment to orient herself and then ran towards where she could hear the noise. She scaled over a pile of rubble and gasped.

There was Tristan running over to help a boy who looked frightened out his mind and whose Persona (likely newly awakened) looked like it was losing. Worst of all, there were far too many Shadows all around, getting closer by the minute.

"Oi! Tristan!" she shouted, pulling her hammer from the holster on her back and sliding down the pile of rubble as carefully as she could.

[Tristan Carter]

Tristan was freaking out. Nothing was making sense. How'd this kid get this far out? Why are there so many shadows? Why didn't someone else notice this yet? These questions and more ran through his head. He ran to the kid, getting about halfway there before he heard Phoebe. Well, at least I have reliable backup.

He dashed in to save the kid, knowing Phoebe was right behind him. "Feebs, got anything that can take out multiple enemies?" He hoped she did, because he only had the one and it didn't look as if it would be too helpful. The enemies all looked like strong specimens of shadows. There were some wrestler guys, some Giants, some that Tristan had never seen before. I seriously hope we can help this kid...

"Pyro Jack- Mind Slice!" He yelled as loud as he could when he got between the kid and the shadows, but the spell had little effect on most of them. Tristan was suddenly swatted away by one of the shadows. Tch... Damn it...

"Feebs, save the kid! I've got this!" But he watched in horror as one of the shadows prepared to remove her from its path towards the boy. And it didn't look like it was gonna say "please."

[Phoebe Minola]

Phoebe shared Tristan's panic. There was no reason this kid should be anywhere this far out of the safe zone. She summoned her Persona and Antiope surged forward, clearing her way to the kid of smaller Shadows.

"Not really, but I'll try! Watch yourself, these things are look pretty bad!"

She dropped a Mazio that hit every Shadow in the area but did next to nothing on most of them. They were just too much. Antiope nailed one Gigas with Rapid Needles and Phoebe knocked a slime into the air with a strike from her hammer. She reached the kid and pulled him to his feet properly.

"Are you okay? Stay close to us!!" she told him sharply.

The poor child was panicking; he screamed almost incoherently and seemed to be able to hardly control his Persona. She turned around and knocked another Shadow back with her hammer.

"Antiope, give us some cover! Rakukaja!"

The soothing orange light spread over them, strengthening their bodies and somehow making their skin tougher, but against this many foes, Phoebe wasn't sure if it'd help that much. She stood between the kid and more Shadows, blowing one up in a powerful burst of fire. But she didn't have the means of taking care of more than one Shadows at a time so it was very vexing for her. She crossed her arms over her chest to guard against an attack but the Gigas managed to send her flying. Literally.

"Tristan!! Look out!!" she shrieked even as she was sent back first against the side of a building.

She smacked there with a loud thud and flopped to the cracked tarmac, dazed.

[Tristan Carter]

Tristan had been climbing to his feet when Phoebe hit the building- he knew she would live, but only because of her boosted abilities from her Persona. So while he was concerned with her well-being, he knew that the kid had to be his main priority. After all, Phoebe could handle herself but the child was in extreme danger. But the child seemed to be learning how to handle the situation.

His Persona behind him, the child walked up to one of the nearest shadows. It was a Gigas, and one of the stronger of the group. Then the kid said calmly and repeatedly "Zio. Zio, Zio, Zio, Zio, Zio!" Tristan could tell that the repeated blows to the Shadows weakness was taking its toll before the child yelled one last time. The Gigas dissipated, but the rest of the shadows chose that time to swarm.

Tristan could hear the kid scream one last time, then he started to cry. It was just a child, damn it! Then he started to speak. "I could have been stronger. I needed to be stronger." Then he looked at the convulging mass of shadows and started to yell. "I will be stronger!"


"So you wish to be stronger, human?"

Tristan didn't know or care about where that voice came from, but wholeheartedly agreed. "Yes! Yes, I do!" He then thought a moment. "Can you make me stronger?"

"Indeed I can." Then Tristan watched in amazement as Pyro Jack erupted in a flash of fire and light. What the hell is happening?

[Phoebe Minola]

Oh God... oh God...

Phoebe was dazed for a good deal after she hit that wall and when she finally sat up, she couldn't see very well. Her glasses had slipped off and she groped around the ground for them, almost blind. She heard the kid screaming and bit her lips in despair, unable to properly see. Every scream sent chills down her spine and she felt her eyes water from distress and tears run down her cheeks. Then she heard Tristan.

She finally found her glasses (undamaged, thankfully) and put them on a hurry.

The boy was dead. The Shadows had overwhelmed him. She could see the lifeless body lying on the ground, trampled by all the Shadows that were congregating around them. She groaned. If only they'd got there sooner before too many of them gathered...

She stumbled to her feet, beat back a Shadow with Antiope's help and tried to force her way to Tristan.

"Tristan! Tristan, look out!" she shouted as Shadows swarmed him.

Then she squinted and had to take a step backwards as an intense light fairly exploded from his Persona. Something was happening.

[Tristan Carter]

"Poor human. It seems as if you are in need of my assistance..."

Tristan was blinded. He felt flames surrounding him, and he knew that the shadows were coming closer... But that was all that he knew. He didn't know what was happening to Pyro Jack, and he didn't know why none of the shadows had harmed him yet. He wasn't going to find out either, as far as he could tell. He was expecting to die soon. He knew he had no chance against these monsters, the ones who killed a child then turned to their next prey.

Human, you doubt me too much.

Tristan felt the light fade away. Where Pyro Jack had been stood a creature who seemed to be of fire. This being, far greater than Pyro Jack in means of strength, only glanced at Tristan with a sad smile. Tristan heard two words, though he knew that no other would be able to hear them. Ifreet and Megido. Guessing that the first was a name, Tristan could only assume that the second was a spell. 

So he tested it out. "Megido!"

While not all of the shadows were instantly vaporized, all but the strongest few were. Tristan was amazed at the sheer power of the spell and Persona. With a glance at Phoebe, he smiled a horrible smile. "This will even things out, won't they, Ifreet?" With this being said, he prepared to cast the devastating spell once more.

[Phoebe Minola]

Phoebe watched with her jaw dropped as Tristan's Persona altered. It grew and changed and gave off a sense of impressive power. Then Tristan dropped that spell and was flung back on her back from the shockwave it produced. She yelped, even though Antiope covered her with her shield. A lot of the Shadows evaporated and she actually felt her skin fizzing from the output of power from that thing. Tristan was surrounded by Shadows and she got somewhat worried. She pulled herself to her feet under Antiope's cover and steadied herself, picking up her hammer too.

"Tristan!! Tristan, are you alright!?" she shouted. "What's going on!?"

A Shadow charged her and Phoebe knocked it down with a strike of her hammer, then Antiope ran it through with her spear. They were still very much in danger.

[Tristan Carter]

Tristan was enjoying the rush of power that he felt. It was exhilarating. It was phenomenal. It was... Scary. He realized this, but he loved just how scary it was. He hoped it would instill some fear into the horrid creatures who would slay a child. He hoped that if the power didn't, his look of utter hatred would.

With a horrifying grin, Tristan blasted off another Megido. It vanished all of the shadows save one, a creature who was chained to a large disk. However, it had another effect- Tristan felt weary. It took much of his energy to cast the spell, and he wasn't sure if he would be able to take on the beast. He looked at Phoebe. He didn't want her hurt too, but there was no way he could take the shadow on his own.

"Feebs... Can you help me with this? It should be weak enough that we could take it down..."

[Phoebe Minola]

"Absolutely, Tris, let's do this," Phoebe said, getting close to Tristan and noticing with alarm that he looked quite unwell.

He looked exhausted and Phoebe could see something about him was off. Haunted, even. The last time she'd seen that kind of look was on a soldier's face when they'd come back home after a bout in Afghanistan. She didn't like it.

She summoned Antiope again and attacked the disk-bound Shadow with a flurry of spear-stabs. Phoebe looked on at Tristan's changed Persona with worry. How on earth had that happened? Why had it changed and what did that mean? Could it have been that his Persona responded to his excessive distress and changed to adapt? Maybe it had to do with the nature of the Persona -- their other selves. If things changed sufficiently and they changed as people... did their Personas change as well?

Puzzled, she watched her Persona smack the Shadow around a bit but didn't kill it yet. She pulled Tristan out of its path when it charged them with a vicious-looking spinning attack. The spikes along the wheel didn't look friendly at all. She directed a blast of fire at it and that seemed to stagger it a little.

[Tristan Carter]

Tristan was going to kill the shadow. He needed to kill it. He couldn't live with himself if he wasn't the one to kill it. The monsters had killed a child. Tristan, as such, was going to kill them. All of them, even this weird creature.

"Ifreet, I don't want to hear any back talk, got it? This thing is weak to fire, so let's burn it to a crisp." With a look of bloodthirst, Tristan looked to Phoebe. "You may want to stand back."

He turned back to the shadow. "Ifreet? Let's do our best to make sure that this thing never harms another soul. Agilao! Agilao, Agilao, Agilao, Agilao Agilao Agilao AGILAO!" Tristan kept repeating himself, blasting the shadow over and over again until it finally dissipated. He then crumbled to his knees, and started to cry once more.

[Phoebe Minola]

Phoebe got quite frightened of Tristan's outburst. She could see it in his eyes that he was shaken to the bottom of his heart and he was losing it. The death of the child seemed to have hit him especially hard. She understood and she absolutely sympathized... but she was worried about him, too. He looked like he was about to snap.

What followed was a massacre. The Shadow was blown back by blasts of fire, over and over until even Phoebe felt a bit sorry for it. Tristan wasn't stopping and she could see him suffer a little bit every time a fire spell went off, until he crumbled to his knees and started crying.

"Tristan! For goodness sake, please, stop, you're hurting yourself!" she blurted and ran right up to him.

She crouched down beside him and shook him gently by the shoulders. "Get a hold of yourself," she said gently. "Sweetie, I know. I know how you feel. I'm so sorry I didn't get here sooner," she said suddenly and drew him into her arms awkwardly and hugged him. "It's not your fault the boy died. Please, don't start torturing yourself over it. We're fighting a war here, kiddo. Losses will happen, whether we like it or not. We have to stand up again and march forward and fight again."

She didn't know what else to do for him and a simple hug just felt like the best she could manage at the moment, given the state he was in.

[Tristan Carter]

Tristan kept crying, although it had slowed down. Now it wasn't sadness or pain that kept him going. It was anger. Anger towards himself, towards shadows, towards the Persona users as a whole. If he had been stronger, the kid wouldn't have died. If the shadows weren't there, then the situation wouldn't exist. If the Users were stronger, the mess they were in would have been finished with already.

In other words, everybody was at fault. Even the stupid kid who got himself killed. Even Phoebe, who tried to help but just couldn't. Everyone was at fault. Everyone needed to pay. So Tristan, with an odd look on his face, stood up and shrugged off Phoebe's hug. And started to walk towards the town.

He heard Ifreet speak to him, but he only caught one line. One line that made him stop in his tracks.

You know that she's still here, right, human? Are you going to leave her to fend for herself?

With a slight nod and a murmur, Tristan continued to walk at a labored pace.

[Phoebe Minola]

Phoebe felt very sorry for Tristan. It was obvious this had affected him very badly and there wasn't just anything she could really do for him. She couldn't quite imagine what was going on through his head but something told her it wasn't good. That haunted look in his eye told her everything.

"Tristan?"

He shrugged her off, almost forcefully and stood up, starting to walk back towards the city.

"Tristan, wait. Tristan."

Nothing. He simply kept walking. Phoebe stood up, anxiety lining her face. "Tristan! Whatever it is you're thinking, that's not the answer!" she blurted, without realizing. "Tristan, you can't shut yourself up like that! Tristan!!"

He ignored her and kept walking, leaving her there to try and recover from her earlier blow and what she'd witnessed. She eyed the body of the boy and her eyes stung. She didn't want to leave him there but what else could she do? She couldn't carry him in the city or alert the authorities.

I'm so... so sorry.

[Tristan Carter]

Tristan walked past the corpse and Phoebe. He was needing some time. Otherwise, he would snap at Phoebe. He was just... So angry. He couldn't save the child, Phoebe couldn't, nobody could. The kid was dead, and Tristan was sure that he wasn't the first to fall to the shadows. But Tristan was determined to be sure that he was the last.

He heard Phoebe trying to talk to him, but there was nothing she could do. There was nothing anyone could do. Still, he knew that something should be done for the boy's body. Turning around, Tristan summoned Ifreet. "Agilao. At the corpse. I can't bury him, so cremation will have to do." With a blank stare, Tristan watched as the body erupted in flames. His poor family... They'll never know what happened to him.

With that thought, he was reminded of his own situation. And he didn't care. He turned once more, and continued walking.