How curious… I was under the impression that we’d only be able to fight the shadow forms of Palace rulers. I suppose this further corroborates my theory that the palace we’re in now represents the cognitions of the church membership at large, and not just one person. It logically follows that we can theoretically meet the shadow forms of any given member of the church under the right circumstances.

And yet, not every person we meet here fits into this category. The other soldiers outside, including Cedric, Anja’s dad, and the version of Yonca that Zoe met, don’t seem to be shadows, but instead are cognitive reflections of a sort. If the owner of this palace is “members of the church at large,” that’s the only reason I can think of why non-members would appear. Cedric’s appearance as a soldier on the “good” side must stem from him having membership is a different church that we’re friendly with or something. The only other explanation would be that this place serves as a palace for the entire town, which seems unlikely given that the church is the only part of it that looks distorted.

This makes me curious of the question that Zoe asked; if the desires of these people aren’t being directly represented here, are their actions genuine? It seems to be so, judging by how these cognitive forms have revealed inner thoughts and feelings that you wouldn’t expect from a mere reflection. Given the palace’s depiction of a literal war to represent the real-world culture war, you would the non-members to be caricatures of themselves, along the lines of the villains in B-list Christian movies. However, from what I can tell they all act remarkably like their real-world counterparts. This is true of church members, too. They are not cartoonishly evil zealots in this world like I expected, but also reflect the general natures of their real-world counterparts. For example, Collin is technically a “palace ruler” under this theory but still seemed interested in trying to help us. Zoe’s parents’ actions depict them in a rather unflattering light, but they still had enough restraint to not try and attack Anja until she ran her own mouth and pissed them off. How could it be that a palace of distorted desires reflects all the same nuances and intricacies of the real world?

My best guess is that the palace also reflects a shared knowledge of everyone in the town. In a palace only owned by one person, I would expect that person’s distorted desires to paint everyone else as being one-dimensional (although to be fair, there were no other real-world people in Pavia’s palace, so I don’t have data to back this up yet.) However, in a palace owned by a group, many different perspectives from each person are introduced into the mix. The confessions we received from Cedric and Yonca may very well be secrets that they have told to someone at the church, and so they are represented as a part of that person’s cognitive version.

Anyways, Zoe’s parents just transformed into strange monsters, so I’ll have to think about this more later.

The odd snake woman who was just Zoe’s mom gets the jump on us by showering our entire party with shards of ice. I’m forced to block them with my arms, as I can feel the biting cold even through my armor. Anja, however, doesn’t seem particularly bothered by them, and hits both foes with a blinding flash of light, which dazes them.

Zoe, who was previously skulking around in the back, runs and takes advantage of the distraction to hit both with a nuclear strike. Zoe’s dad is hit straight on, but Zoe’s mom was seemingly not affected by Anja’s move and is able to dodge. The pain of being turned against her own flesh and blood is visible on Zoe’s face.

Ted uses that spell that weakens an enemy’s attacks on Zoe’s mom, and then turns to me. “This 6 on 2 match could get confusing. I reckon we should split our group and isolate each opponent.”

“Not a bad idea,” I agree. “How about the two of us focus on Miss Slithers over there?”

He nods, and the two of us move in closer to Zoe’s mom.

In the interest of keeping the battle as short as possible, I unleash my angelic light attack on Zoe’s mom. I can tell by the furious hissing of the snake on her shoulder that it was effective.

“We got the winged one, then!” Nova affirms before making a huge lunge for Zoe’s dad and socking him with his hammer.

“Sounds like a plan,” I say. “Hey Cedric, how about you come help Ted and I?”

I turn towards him to find that Cedric got frozen in place by the initial assault. Actually, considering that he doesn’t have a Persona, I don’t think he’s going to be that useful to us at this point. Oh well, at least he got us inside.

“…Never mind, it’s just you and me then,” I say to Ted.

“Well, uh, it looks like you guys got everything under control!” Collin calls, shimmying along the wall towards the exit of the room. “I’m just gonna… peace out…”

Derrick confusedly looks back and forth between Zoe’s parents and us, and then wisely decides to follow his brother out the door.

Zoe’s mom isn’t taking my attack lying down, however. She begins clutching at the air in Ted’s direction, which causes him to tense up like he’s been paralyzed. After a second, his body relaxes, and a sort of ghostly vapor comes out of him that then flies into Zoe’s mom.

“What the hell did she just do to you?” I ask Ted.

“Drained my energy… but fear not, I have enough left for this!”

He jumps into the air and hits Zoe’s mom with one of his signature fire attacks. She seems particularly badly hurt by it. Between that and my preemptive strike, I’m willing to bet that she’s about to meet a quick end.

Before she can fully recover, I run up to her and strike her down with my sword. However, it was not enough to finish her off, and I hear her utter “Get her!” in a harsh whisper. The snake on her shoulder lunges for me, and it wraps around my body like an anaconda. Also, Zoe’s mom wasn’t wearing anything under the snake… Didn’t expect to see this in a palace which is based on a church, but here we are.

“You… are unforgivable!” She hisses, her face contorted with fury. Her voice sounds strange now that she’s in her shadow form; the tones are distorted, like I’m listening to several voices at once. “You turned her against me!”

“I… didn’t do jack shit!” I gasp, having a hard time catching my breath while being squeezed.

“You turned her over to your sinful way of life, didn’t you?”

“I never intended for any of this to happen!” I retort. “Zoe came to me. I may have loved her first, but I was never going to tell her until she did.”

“Unbelievable! You must be lying!” she snarls. “Hurt her,” she says in the hissing voice.

The snake’s mouth bites into the bare flesh on my hand. Very quickly, I feel its toxins enter my veins. It hurts like hell.

Now that Dad has regained his bearings, he is proving to be quite a difficult opponent. His attacks are quite potent, and he seems to take little damage from direct hits with our weapons. I learned this after a blast from my shotgun barely seemed to leave a dent in his metallic body. Realizing this, we have begun to try and wear him down using magic attacks.

After Anja smacks him with a strong gust of wind, Dad knocks her back with a huge sword and then turns towards me.

“Zoe, stop this insanity and come home to us!” he pleads with me. “Your mother and I, we know what is best for you.”

“Why don’t you think about how she feels for once?” Nova responds. “Are you really sure you’re doing the best thing?”

“Like you would know anything about parenting!” Dad growls back. “You and the foul-mouthed girl are interfering in private family affairs! You have no stake in this discussion!”

“Sure I do.” Anja cuts in. “Zoe is our friend. Unlike you, I care about what happens to her.”

Dad is infuriated by this remark. “You stupid child. How dare you level such accusations against me!”

Dad lifts his hand into the air, and three piercing beams of light envelop us. I surprisingly find that I’m not hurt by them, and neither is Anja. Nova, however, kicks the bucket right then and there, falling face first onto the floor.

“Anja, should we really be angering him further?” I ask, feeling very afraid.

“Sorry… couldn’t help myself,” Anja replies sheepishly. “Anyways, look alive!”

As if being injected in venom that lights up my nerves wasn’t enough, Zoe’s mom unleashes a fire attack on me while I’m still being constricted. I thought Ted was supposed to be helping me. Where did that little fucker go?

“Zoe was always my good little girl,” Zoe’s mom rants. “She did everything she was told to do. She’d never do something like that! Not unless you turned her heart!“

“Your ‘good little girl’ is fourteen years old. You can’t have expected…” But I have to stop and desperately pant air into my lungs. I can’t take much more of this. I feel like I’m slipping way…

Thankfully, at long last I hear a spray of gunfire from beside me, and the snake that had been squeezing and biting me suddenly lets go.

I turn to see that Cedric has finally thawed out, and now has his gun turned towards Zoe’s mom. He pulls the trigger again… to find that he’s already used up his clip. Zoe’s mom kicks him into the back wall, where he crumbles to the floor and disintegrates.

I take this opportunity to jump to my feet and put the tip of my sword at Zoe’s mom’s neck. Checkmate.

Realizing that she’s lost, Zoe’s mom now looks fearful. “Wait… Please, hear me out. I’ve only ever wanted what’s in Zoe’s best interests. You can understand that, right?”

“Is that really so?” I challenge. “Your actions have been those of someone who’s just trying to cover her ass. Just admit it, you know you did the wrong thing, and you’re just trying to stop it from affecting your reputation. If you really thought you were ‘saving’ her from us, you would’ve just tried to come get her earlier instead of using these weird, passive-aggressive methods.”

Zoe’s mom sighs heavily. “Teenagers like you have no clue how the world really works. You know that the legacy of your family follows you throughout your whole life, right? We had to be very careful about how we proceeded getting her back. If something had gone wrong, your damn stubborn parents would’ve raised hell about it. An incident like that would’ve marked Zoe for the rest of her life. Everyone in town would know of her only by this incident.”

“Sure, but you could’ve just came clean, then. Why not apologize to her?”

“And how can we do that if we’re not even allowed near her?”

I shake my head at her. “I’m sorry, but it really seems like you don’t get the point here. You people are way too concerned about your public image. If you weren’t so prideful, you could’ve told my parents that you were remorseful, and they would’ve accepted that.”

This makes her get angry again. “What our public image is helps Zoe too, you moronic girl! You must know how Zoe is by now. She’s so pure-hearted; she wants nothing in the world more than to help those who are in need. And she’s also so, so naïve. The cruel world we live in will eat her alive! Our powerful position in the town gives us many, many connections. We can help her find success in whatever it is she chooses to do. But if everyone believes that we’re promoting sin, that reputation we have will be sunk. How would that be helping her?”

It’s my turn to sigh, as I ponder this. The truth is, she is right in a sense. Zoe really is a very naïve girl. I think that’s why I’ve always felt so protective of her. If her mom is to be believed, her parents felt that same sense of protectiveness towards her…

I put down my sword. “Well, telling me that is useless. Why don’t we quit this and talk it over like adults?”

“Okay… let’s talk about it,” she agrees. She is shrouded in light once again, and appears as her usual, blonde, thankfully clothed self.

Ted finally re-emerges, scuttling up on all fours and coming to a stop next to me. “It looks like the others haven’t realized it’s over yet,” he observes. Indeed, Anja and Zoe are still wailing on Zoe’s dad with their respective magic attacks. Nova is lying face down on the floor, so he was probably knocked out a little while back.

“Where did you run off to, anyway?” I ask him.

“I was defrosting Cedric,” Ted explains. “I thought that he may be of use.”

“Well, he definitely was, so thank you,” I say. “Unfortunately, it seems as if he’s been done in now.”

“Alas, poor Cedric,” Ted laments.

I turn back towards the other half of the fight, where Zoe’s dad is showering what appear to be blindingly bright comets upon Anja and Zoe. They’re starting to look worn down.

“Okay, let’s bring this to a halt already. C’mon,” I say, walking over and motioning for Anja and Zoe to quit attacking.

Zoe gasps when she sees me. “Ashley, are you okay? You look like you’re about to drop dead.”

“I feel like it too,” I admit.

Zoe’s dad looks down at his wife with confusion. “What is happening? Have you given up?” he asks.

“Honey, I think we… should tell Zoe the truth. For her sake.”

Zoe’s dad nods in agreement, and he likewise returns to his regular human form.