What’s driving you to do all of this... Well, she just asked me a big question, didn’t she? I mean, it’s not like there’s just one reason. Of course, there is one thing which, perhaps, was the last straw…

“Well… what do you about Justice Pavia?”

“I know that he is the local Justice of the Peace, and that he’s running for re-election this year. That’s about it.”

Suddenly, she looks at me sternly. “Look, Anja. You read what Lucy wrote; this is only for the most evil people imaginable. This better not be about some petty political disagreement that you have.”

“It’s not!” I insist. “It has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with the fact that this man is about to force him and his little sister to live with his abusive and ableist mother!”

She furrows her eyebrows. “Abusive and what? ”

“Ableist,” I reiterate.

“And am I supposed to know what that means?”

“It refers to someone who’s bigoted against someone for their disability,” I explain. “Nova has Asperger’s.”

“But then, it sounds like we should be after Nova’s mom. What does the Justice have to do with this?”

“He’s the one who’s overseeing the custody battle. And I thought about targeting Nova’s mom, but… well, if someone’s parents don’t love them, I doubt that even something like this would help with that.”

Ashley stops, and just sits silently for a while, staring into space; she seems to be deep in thought.

“Okay, Anja, let’s say for a moment that this dude really is terrible, and definitely someone who’s worth the time it takes to do something like this. Before we do anything, we’re going to need to talk to Nova about this. This process only works if someone is with us who was directly affected the person we’re going after.”

“Well, let’s go get him then!” I say, jumping up to my feet.

“Hold the fuck up. I really do think we should talk to him about this first, tomorrow during lunch.”

“Why wait until then?” I chide at her, annoyed at her insistence on delaying the process.

“Because, this is dangerous shit we’re dealing with!” she growls at me. She also gets to her feet, and glares straight down at me. I have to admit, the effect is very intimidating.

“You don’t understand what’s going on here. I really don’t understand much of it myself. But what I do know is that there are powers at play here that are unlike anything you have ever tried to comprehend.”

“Jeez, okay, drama queen,” I say, taking a few steps back from her.

She takes her phone and takes us back to her room.

As soon as we’re back, she begins striding past me towards her door.

“Hey, wait a sec!” I call after her. “What are we doing?”

“While you’re here, there’s someone I want to introduce you to,” she says, opening the door.

And so I hurriedly follow her back down the hallway, and then past the dining room table and into the kitchen, where she opens the freezer door. However, all she does is just look inside of it and sigh heavily.

“What, you want to introduce me to someone who lives in your freezer?” I ask.

“I was going to offer you a popsicle, but… looks like my mom finished those off already.” She closes the freezer door.

“How do you know it wasn’t your dad?”

“Because my dad actually has self-control,” she says. “Also, he’s not home right now.”

“Where is your mom, anyway?” I ask, looking around the house, where the living room is empty.

“Probably taking a nap. She played in a musical up in Dallas last weekend, and it totally destroyed her sleep schedule.”

“Surely she can’t be tired if she just ate sugar?”

“My mom actually does get tired when she eats sugar… just one of her many quirks.”

“Do you think she has some sort of medical condition?”

She shoots me a scathing look. “Do you have a medical condition which makes you ask 10,000 questions per second?”

“I’m a curious person!” I reply indignantly.

She rolls her eyes at me, and then makes for the front door.

(Seriously though, I didn’t think it was that offensive of a question. She’s being totally ridiculous. You guys agree with me, right?)

Ashley marches me down to the end of her street, where across the road perpendicular to hers, there is a church. The area is surrounded mostly by trees and is decently far away from any houses. The thin driveway eventually hits a fork, where a large, glorious stone sign says First Methodist Church . The sign is surrounded by a bed of flowers. The left fork leads to a currently empty parking lot, and the right fork, which is the one that Ashley takes, leads to the church itself, which appears old and humble.

Ashley walks past the building and to a few shoddy wooden picnic tables that are down the hill. Everything behind the tables is forest.

“Wait here,” she tells me. So, I sit down at the table. Ashley takes off into the forest. However, it is not long before she returns, holding an armadillo out in front of her, which she sets down on the table.

“Ooh, this is your talking armadillo friend?” I ask. “Hi little fella!”

“Howdy ma’am,” the armadillo says, in a gruff, deep voice with a southern accent. “I must ask that you not patronize me.”

But I can’t help but burst into laughter right there. I’m sorry, this is just the silliest thing I’ve ever seen. The blatant Texas-ness of this is just beautiful.

“Just a warning, Anja,” Ashley explains, “he did used to be a human, which means that he has human intelligence.”

“You should heed the advice of your older sister,” Ted says.

This, however, makes me bristle with anger. “ Older sister? I’M OLDER THAN HER! BY A YEAR! Actually, weren’t you born in May? I think I’m older than you by a year and a half!”

“Calm your tits, Anja,” Ashley says. “Do you want the whole neighborhood to hear us?”

“The Lovers, are you not?” Ted asks me, looking at me intently with his little armadillo face. “You’re certainly no longer Temperance.”

I look at Ashley for help, but she just shrugs back at me. “Anyways, you might want to treat Ted with some respect. He’s the one who saved me from the coyotes, and so he’ll be the one who’ll be teaching us to use our Personas.”

“Right. My apologies, Armadillo-sensei.”

Ashley glares at me for this, but honestly, it’s worth it.

“Well,” she says, “since you’re the one who’s in a big fuckin’ hurry, why don’t we have a practice round, right now?”

“Right now?” I ask, taken aback. “I mean, sure, but isn’t it getting kind of late in the day?”

“We have all the time in the world,” Ashley explains. “Time doesn’t pass when we’re in the Metaverse. Why do you think nobody noticed us missing from the practice room this morning?”

“Alright then. Let’s get down and dirty!”

Ashley rolls her eyes at me again before taking us into the Metaverse once again.

This is my first time entering the Metaverse outside of a building, and for a moment I have to simply stand in awe of the scenery. Because I am doing so, I miss the conversation that Ashley and Ted (who is now standing on his legs and wearing a cowboy hat) have nearby, and by the time I look back at them for the plan they’re already heading back towards the street.

“Hey, slow the fuck down, Micro Mike!” I call after them, as I hurry to catch up once again. “What’re we doing?”

“Well, if you had been paying attention,” Ashley begins, “you would know that the shadows should be out and about by now, and as Lucy pointed out, they should make for good fodder for grinding.”

“Do you think they’ll all be coyotes, like the ones you saw?” I ask.

“Shadows can appear in many different forms,” Ted explains. “However, we can expect them to imitate species that are native to this region of the land.”

“We better not run into any fucking giant wasps, then,” I say. At that moment, I notice that the bed of flowers by the sign has turned into an array of exotic-looking mushrooms.

“No time to stop and smell the roses, little sis,” Ashley says from behind me.

Grr. She’s never gonna let go of that, is she?

“And why not?” I question. “I thought you said we had all the time in the world?”

“Because, we have trouble!”

I whirl around, and see Ashley and Ted getting into battle stances; Ashley drawing her sword, and Ted drawing a little revolver. In front of them, are two enormous snakes, with patterns of alternating yellow and light blue, making them stick out from the scenery quite a bit.

“Alright, time to do it to it!” I shout, as I dash up next to them, drawing my own weapon.

It is then that I see them: the Personas of the other two. Ashley’s is some kind of angel, and Ted’s is this funky looking robotic guy with a harp strapped to his back.

Anyways, I waste no time in opening fire on our serpentine opponents. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work quite as well as it did with the vines, since the snakes seem to at least be smart enough to dodge the majority of the bullets.

“I think we should go for a more direct approach,” Ashley says, as she throws caution to the wind and charges at one of them.

Provoked, the other one charges straight for me, and I’m momently at a loss for what to do; my weapon is a ranged one!

Thankfully, it only gets halfway there before a huge blast of fire knocks it aside; I see Ted to my left with his hand outstretched.

“Stay on your toes, Anja!” he barks at me. “Use your magic!”

“How?” I shout back at him.

“Let your Persona guide you!”

And then, without really thinking about it, I raise my hand in front of me and snap my fingers. I am pleased, though honestly not entirely surprised, to see a huge flash of light split the air in front of me, leaving the snake clearly disoriented. I take advantage of this moment of weakness to rush towards it and smack it with my gun.

However, it doesn’t take the snake long to recover, and it begins wrapping itself around me…

From several yards away, I can see Ashley standing off against the other snake. She catches my eye, and then reaches towards me and casts some sort of spell that significantly slows down my snake’s movement, allowing me to wrestle free. However, helping me came at a cost; the snake she was facing lurched forward and sunk its teeth right into her shoulder…

I finish off the snake in front of me by grabbing its head and letting loose with automatic fire right into its mouth: the bullets form several clear holes all around its head and neck, which ooze blood that looks like black tar… then, the snake goes still, and dissipates into a sort of shadowy substance. Then, it fades into the air, as if it had never existed to begin with.

I immediately take off for where Ashley was. I watch Ted stun the remaining snake with a well-aimed shot, allowing Ashley to finish it off with a wild strike that cuts it clean in two. The force of the swing, however, caused her to fall over backwards onto the ground.

“Are you okay?” I ask her stupidly, as I huddle over her. She must be in a ton of pain; the snake’s bite somehow melted through the armor and left two huge gashes on her shoulder. However, the only sign of pain that she’s showing is a grimace that’s barely more expressive than the look she gives me when I make a bad joke.

“What the hell… are those fangs made of?” she says hoarsely. “Cut through my armor like… tissue paper.”

Once again, without really thinking about it, I lift my hand to her shoulder, which begins glowing brightly. When I pull it away, the wound is inexplicably healed. Ashley gives me a strange look, like she’s just now noticed that I exist.

“That venom must have special properties that pierce defenses,” Ted says from behind me.

“Well, what the hell is the point of having armor if it doesn’t fucking work?” Ashley spits, as she gets to her feet. (You know, I would’ve appreciated a thank you for healing her.) “Well, at any rate, I suppose that was an improvement over my first attempt at fighting something.”

“That was the weirdest feeling ever!” I shout excitedly. “It was like, I’ve known how to do magic my whole life and only just now decided to use it… It’s like I’m one of the X-men!”

“If I hear one more pop culture reference out of you…” Ashley begins, but she doesn’t seem able to finish her sentence, instead beginning to pant like she just ran a mile.

“Now that you are aware of the powers of your Personas, you can hone your skills for greater effect,” Ted explains to us.

I turn around and look at him. He’s continuously twirling his pistol in his hand, evidently under the impression that it makes him look badass. “Man, if that was level one, I can’t wait to see what greater powers are contained in this… uh… floating naked guy.”

“Well, I’m going to put it a request that we call it a day,” Ashley interjects, still sounding out of breath. “If it hadn’t been for your magic hands, I would’ve been done for…”

“Well, you’re the one with the phone,” I comment.

“Before I press the button, we should go back to where we entered… otherwise, it will look like we essentially teleported across the lawn.”

“Wait, really?” I ask. “Back at the school, we were instantly put back where we came in.”

“Well, that was different,” Ashley says.

“The Metaverse was different when you entered it at school?” Ted asks sharply.

“Yeah, it didn’t look like this at all, it was like the middle of a jungle,” I explain. “And then I got grabbed by a bunch of vines, and was probably on the verge of being tentacle raped when my Persona came to my rescue.”

Ashley shakes her head at me. “Jesus, Anja.”

“I’m being dead serious!” I assert. “I’m not even joking! That whole thing was creepy as fuck!”

“Hmm… that is disturbing,” Ted comments. “Very disturbing indeed…”

For some dumb reason, the way he says this reminds me of Yoda, but I refrain from mentioning this in fear of incensing Ashley further.

“Well, it sounds like we probably don’t want to enter here at the school from here on out,” Ashley states. “Which is a major inconvenience, given that’s the only place where we regularly gather.”

“So, what’s the plan then?” I ask. “Make this place the base of our operations?”

“I think that would be easiest,” Ashley agrees. “Otherwise, I’d have to smuggle this one-” she gestures at Ted- “in my backpack to wherever we do meet.”

“That sounds kind of fun, though,” I comment, as we make our way back for the tables. “It’d be like having a pet come with you everywhere you go. You could talk to him when you feel lonely during school… use him to help you study… he could make you go to bed on time every night…”

“I don’t need help going to bed on time,” Ashley says bluntly.

And that was pretty much what has to be the weirdest day of my entire life. I’ve done some pretty strange stuff in my time, but this has to be, like, number two or three on that list.

Anyways, that was another chapter narrated by Anja Buelen. Stay tuned for next where there will be… uh… either more fighting with overly large Texan wildlife, or more gay angst. Or both. We’ll see.