I get a chance to test my new abilities almost immediately. Ted runs straight past me, which means that the two golden knights are following right behind him… wait a minute, weren’t there three? What happened to the third one?

Anyways, since I have the hammer, I’m assuming that I must have some sort of electricity attack as well. Going by Pokémon logic, it should hit at least neutrally.

I raise my hammer into the air, and sure enough, it begins crackling with sparks. I bring it down, and a huge crash of lightning is brought down right on one of their heads! The one I hit is fried, he falls to the floor and dissipates into shadow.

The other one stops in his tracks and looks at me. “Ah, there it is! Quite the bombastic opening, but I hope you know how to follow it up!”

“You bet I do!” I shout back, even though that’s kind of a lie because I don’t know what other powers I have.

He runs towards me with surprising speed, so much so that I’m caught off guard and don’t have time to guard against a punch that hits me smack in the face and… just kind of bounces off. Ha! I’m awesome.

“What in God’s name is this?” the knight yells, recoiling from the punch.

“It’s your doom!” I shout back. Emboldened, I run forwards, take a huge leap into the air, and club right across the face with my hammer, which sends him staggering backwards.

As much fun as that was, when I land back on my feet I notice that it didn’t seem to do much. There’s a big dent in his helmet where I hit him, but otherwise it mostly seems to just have annoyed him. Wait, didn’t Ashley say that they resisted physical…?

Then, he starts doing something new. His eyes begin glowing, and he claps both of his hands out in front of him, which shoots a wave of whiteness at me, and it feels like I’m on fire…

The few seconds I stopped to see Nova’s transformation, the winged cherubim is on me. These assholes have proved to be quite evasive. I finally managed to get rid of one of them, but now the other one is clawing all over my body, somehow always just out of my reach…

Then, with one last shove, I’m on the floor, the thing standing over me, staring at me with its creepy, vaguely human face.

“You know, for a heavenly being, you really are a piece of shit,” I tell it.

It raises its paw to deal a final blow, but then I hear a gunshot and the cherub shrieks in pain as blood starts pouring out of the wings attached to its head… and onto my face. Great.

I push it off and roll over onto my front. I see that the one who fired was Ted. Anja is still laying on the floor a few yards behind him.

“I never miss a shot,” he gloats, looking proud of himself.

“Thanks for the help. Can you use that healing move on Anja?”

“Not right now… I used up my magic fighting the golden ones.”

“You used it up?”

“That’s right.”

I push myself up with my arms, which is rather difficult given that they’re all bruised by my winged assaulters, and get to my feet. I look around and see Nova fighting the last of the knights.

“What in God’s name is this?” It shouts at him.

“It’s your doom!” Nova yells back at it, which makes me roll me eyes. He needs to work on his one-liners.

“Think we should go help him out?” I ask Ted.

“I don’t know what we can do for him. My fire attack were very effective, but now that my magic is depleted…”

“Don’t worry, I have something up my own sleeve,” I assure him.

I turn back just in time to watch Nova get blasted in the face by one of those light attacks that the other guy tried on me. Unfortunately, it looks like Nova isn’t taking it as well as I did, so I think it’s time for me to intervene.

I run towards him and stick out my hand, just like before, and shoot a beam of light straight into him. It cracks his armor some like before… but it didn’t seem to do nearly as much, for some reason.

“Really?” I say to it. “You’re still standing after that?”

“You kids really don’t know anything,” he taunts back. “That attack you just did cuts your opponent’s life force in half… which means that it’s not going to do nearly as much now when I’ve already weakened. Honestly, you walk in here not even knowing your own moves, with a kid who doesn’t even have a Persona yet?”

“I don’t want to hear it. Perish,” I say, preparing my sword to finish it off. However, it moves faster than me that clocks me right over the head.

Ugh… Today is not my day, friends. I wake up feeling dizzy, and like I’m about to throw up. What on earth happened?

I open my eyes, blinking at the light. Ashley, Nova and Ted are laying around me. It looks like we were all just kind of dropped onto the floor. I look around more, and see that we’re no longer in that courtroom, but instead back in the opening chamber.

Ashley is out cold, her armor torn by several scratches, and her face covered in blood. Nova is out too, but he’s now dressed in what looks like the clothes of a king, with a golden robe and matching gold layered headdress. I deduce that he must have awakened his Persona during the last fight. I look over at Ted, who actually still seems to be conscious.

“Hey little buddy,” I say. “I’ll heal you, if you heal me…”

“I ain’t got nothing left,” he growls. “Heal the other two so we can get out of here.”

“Get out of here?” Then, it dawns on me; we must be back here because we lost.

I crawl over to Nova and put my hand on him. I do that thing I did earlier, and he wakes up. He doesn’t say anything at first, his eyes just flit around confusedly.

I do the same for Ashley, though I’m somewhat apprehensive because I have a sneaking suspicion that she’s going to wake up with some Opinions™.

“What are we back here for? Awh, shit!” Nova moans, catching up with recent events.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Ashley starts, getting into a sitting up position. “If we lost the battle… why are we still… in the palace? Why wouldn’t he just eject us?”

“He wanted us to ‘confess our crimes,’ or whatever,” Nova explains. “He probably wanted us to go through that freaky mind shit again.”

“Well, that’s not going to work, since I deactivated the chamber’s curse already,” Ashley says.

“We’re lucky we’re still alive,” Ted interjects. “Most villains woulda just snuffed us on the spot.”

“Well, isn’t that nice of him,” I joke. “I guess in his own twisted way, he really does just want us to be better human beings.”

“Is that why every enemy in this palace makes fun of us?” Nova asks.

“Uh… Yeah… Maybe… Kinda,” is the best answer I can give.

“Well, we better go finish it off,” Ashley says, getting to her feet. “No time like the present.”

“Ashley, if I try to get up right now, I’m going to lose my lunch,” I tell her. “Not like it’d be a huge loss, that chicken was all soggy…”

“You wouldn’t happen to have any new healing powers, do you?” Ashley asks Nova.

“Dude, if we just walk around back there again, we’re going to get our asses kicked again!” Nova argues.

“No, I don’t think so. We already know what to expect, and you have your Persona now. We’ll just do it better this time.”

“Really? When half of the party is barely conscious, and we’ve only been healed partially thanks to Anja?”

“Well, what do you suggest we do about it?”

“These Persona things aren’t our actually bodies, right? That means we should be healed when we leave. So if we come back here tomorrow, we’ll be fresh and ready to finish it off.”

“That’s funny. You were the one who was ramming my ass last week to get this done. Now you want to put it off.”

“Ashley, I think he has a point,” I interject. “We’re not getting anything done in our current state.”

Ashley sighs heavily, but doesn’t say anything.

“You know, we didn’t ask you to just decide everything for us,” Nova chides her. He’s clearly very angry- he’s glaring at Ashley and making stressed hand gestures. Ashley isn’t fazed though, she just stares back at him. “We weren’t prepared for that at all. We should’ve done what I suggested and spent more time looking around. For one, if I had a Persona going into the fight, we would’ve had much better odds, and I wouldn’t have had to stand there and watch Anja get her ass beat while I couldn’t do jack shit. For another, the types of enemies we see here seem to be pretty consistent, so more experience fighting them can only be a good thing.”

“Or maybe all of the extra fighting would’ve just tired us out,” Ashley counters.

“But doesn’t our fighting get better the more experience we get?” I add. “Maybe we could’ve even spent time outside of this palace training ourselves.”

“Well, actually... “ Ashley sighs once again. “I think Lucy might’ve mentioned something about that, yes.”

“Well, how does it feel being wrong for the first time in your whole life?” Nova taunts.

“Oh, shut your fucking mouth.”

“Well, I do think it’s important that we start making decisions more democratically from here on out,” I say, trying to defuse the situation. “Can you agree to that, Ashley?”

“Fine. Whatever.”

“Also, uh… can someone help me to my feet?”

All things considered, I arrived home that afternoon in poor spirits. Zoe’s nowhere to be seen when I first walk in, maybe she’s taking a shower. My parents are in the living room, having a very odd conversation.

“If you were born with green eyes,” my dad is saying as I walk in, “you could, in theory, hide this fact by spending your life wearing colored contact lens.”

“Yeah, but why should you have to?” my mom counters, surprisingly passionate about this subject. “Wouldn’t it feel dirty, just spending your whole life hiding what your true eye color is? That kind of thing can have bad effects on someone’s mind.”

“Well, that’s true. So it’d have to be worth the pain and effort of hiding it. If having green eyes is a sin against God, that would make it worth it.”

“Sure, but how can having green eyes be a sin against God, if God gave you green eyes?”

“Hmm. That’s a good point.”

“Um, Dad? Don’t you have brown eyes?” I ask, leaning against the wall behind them. “Why is this even relevant to you?”

“I technically have hazel eyes,” Dad responds, taking off his glasses and fiddling with them. “Of course, most people can’t tell the difference.”

“I didn’t see you come in, how was it with your friends?” Mom asks, turning around to face me.

Let’s see… I got mind raped, then had to fight a dude twice my height by myself, then had to listen to Anja and Nova bitch at me, then got yelled at by a giant version of Pavia, then got my ass kicked.

“Oh, it was great. Utterly fantastic.”

“Um… good to hear?” My mom replies uncertainly.

“Where’s Zoe at?”

“I believe she was taking a shower,” my dad says.

“She still using my stuff?”

“Yes. Your mother and I have tried repeatedly to reason with her parents, but they have been unduly frustrating. They have not expressed a desire for their daughter to return home, but also seem unwilling to let us collect her things. In other words, we are in the least convenient situation possible.”

“I have a hunch that they’re worried about what the neighbors will think when they see us getting all of her stuff,” my mom adds. “You know, I’ve always thought that her parents were nice people, but…” She doesn’t finish that thought, she just kind of stares off into space after that.

I exit the living room. Zoe must be in back in her room by now, because the door is closed and the lights are on. I knock on the door, just in case.

“Just one minute!” I hear her say. A short while later, Zoe answers the door, wearing one of my old band camp shirts (which is a bit big on her.) As soon as she sees me, she pulls me into a deep hug and buries her face into my chest.

I have noticed that she seems to be having a bit of… separation anxiety since that one thing happened. On one hand, the endorphins I get from it are kind of nice. It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to be physically close with someone. On the other hand… I’m worried about her.

I close the door behind me, and we both go sit down on her bed.

“Did you do it?” she asks me in a low voice.

“Not quite… we ended up having to leave and regroup. We’re going to finish the job tomorrow.”

“Is it really dangerous in there?” she asks, looking up at me with wide eyes.

“Um… we ran into a few foes, but it was nothing we couldn’t handle.”

She lays the side of her face on my shoulder. “You’re so tough, Ashley. I’ve always… loved that about you.”

A brief pause, and then I hear her phone vibrate. She grabs it and starts typing something.

“Who are you talking to?”

“Collin. We’ve been trying to stay in touch.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good for him.”

“He’s also telling me about what’s going on at home. He says that our parents are… worried. They keep talking in whispers to each other.”

“Worried because they’re remorseful, or because they’re just afraid of any backlash they may get?” I ask, remembering what my mom said.

“I don’t know…” she starts blinking rapidly, her jaw clenched. “I’ve been trying to be tough, too. But it’s really hard… After what happened. It’s just too much for me sometimes. It feels so awful, it’s like… like…”

“Like you’re in a pit of darkness and nobody will ever love you again?”

“Um… yeah, like that. Well, not exactly. You still love me… don’t you?”

“Of course I do. You don’t even need to ask silly questions like that.”

She smiles a little. “And your parents have been nice to me… I’m very grateful for you all.”

I still can’t help but to find myself wishing that there was something else I could do, too.

Well… I don’t know, maybe there is. Lucy made it clear to me that this whole Metaverse thing is going to be ongoing. Maybe in the course of our operations there, I can find some way to help her? Or at least stop things from getting worse? Of course, I have no clue what that would be…

Ah well. I need to just focus on finishing up helping out Nova for now anyway. Once we get through this… then maybe we’ll have a conversation about our next step.

“Um… Ashley?” Zoe says softly, cutting off my train of thought. “W-with region jazz coming in less than two weeks… can you help me with something?”

“Of course.”

“I don’t quite understand something your mom said about the improvisation… and we have another lesson tomorrow. Why is it that I’m supposed to use the blues scale… but I can also play a d natural… but only sometimes?”

And… well, I think you get the idea. From there we just do our usual practicing/homework and stuff. Next time… we’re going to start bringing this little saga to a close. (Hopefully. Unless we fuck it up again.)