The reality broke around Charles as he ran and, all of a sudden, he found himself back in the silence of the dark hallway. Something was different though. The usual, tranquil glow of the outer space around the hall was replaced by static. It trembled through the air, through the walls, like a chilling humm. Moreover, the girl was gone. She always waited for him and jumped him up the moment he arrived, but now sit was as if she wasn't there.
The silence was uneasing, unnatural. It prevented Charles from sticking around for long, as it pierced his head. He sho... What was that?
A tall figure clad in what appeared to be some sort of a black armor that covered its shoulders, hands, head and part of the legs and two giant,
aztec ritualistic swords in its hands hovered around 20 meters away from Charles. The static seemed to swirl around it, disrupting its shape and size every now and then. Its very presence made Charles shiver and freeze in place. He was scared of it. Not from what if could do to him, though. He couldn't budge even as it noticed him and turned around, its two swords dragging on the ground as it hovered towards Charles. He had to run, he just had to! Then their eyes met, or they would have... The trutch was the creature had no face, just a blank, black head. Charles's mind stopped working. If he was a normal human, he'd be sweating like hell. This thing was something else, something... bad, wrong, evil! Whatever it was though, he had to...
"...!" The thing rushed at Charles, swinging its giant sword at him. That moment seemed to have woken Charles up, as he quickly jumped to dodge the strike. The creature let out a mouthless screech as its sword pierced through the floor as if it was made of butter. It was already prepairing another attack. Charles managed to avoid that strike as well, but he was getting weary for some reason. His body swayed from side to side as he stood and his feet began heavy. He could no longer dodge it...
"Cha-chan!" A sudden burst of bright light exploded in the creature's face, throwing it off balance. As the creature screeched once again, Charles felt somebody grabbing his forearm and pulling him away.
"Let's go, come on!" It was the girl, but she had something that appeared to be a purple-colored, star patterned grenade launcher in her hands.
"No time to waste, let's go!" She pulled him away into her room. The creature couldn't catch up to them, but it made it to the door and was now relentlesly smashing its swords into them. The girl sat down on the floor by her grenade launcher, clearly relieved. She turned to the bewildered Charles with a smile on her face.
"Sorry about that..." She told him.
"No need to apologise." He replied shortly and she laughed, all as the creature continued to smash the door.
Noticing his concern, the girl resumed.
"D-don't worry about that, the door will hold. But that isn't what's currently boggling your mind, is it?" He shook his head and she sighed.
"I understand. Maybe I should just tell you everything now... You see, that thing is the cause of the static you have been experiencing. I thought I managed to supress it last time, but it didn't hold... And now I can't do anything as it already took a shape..." She lowered her head.
Her explanaiton was shoddy as best, though. Charles could still only barely grasp whatever the heck was happening right now. She better had some real answers, or else... He clenched his fists.
"Who exactly are you?" She flinched at the tone of his voice, looking at him with her puppy dog eyes.
"Cha-chan...?""That's not my name!" This time her reaction was even stronger.
"Cha..." She began to cry silently.
"I-" She was interrupted by the sound of the door being crushed to pieces. Both of the gasped as the creature peeked into the room, observing them for a second before swinging its huge sword. "Watch out!" She screamed, picking up her launcher and shooting another one of those bizzare blight bursts at the creature, reucing its sword to dust before it could slash anything. The shrapnel from it almost pierced Charles.
"You gotta stop acting this way, you're the one causing this, waah!" The other sword suddenly burst through the wall, straight at her. She managed to block the strike with her weapon, but it broke in half upon the heavy impact which threw the girl flying into her pile of plushes.
Charles acted instinctively as the thing swung again. He used his strong legs to jump and pull the girl away from the swing. She did seem to know something, so he couldn't just leave her.
"Thanks, but let's run!" Charles followed her command and they escaped the room with the creature still tailing them. As they ran through the hall, she turned to him with a sad look on her face.
"D-did you really mean what you thought to yourself in the art club room?" How did she know about that? He nodded regardless, this wasn't a time to be prickling over irrelevant stuff.
"So... you really wish badly for a Persona of your own?" He nodded once again as her face grew even sadder.
"I see... There also doesn't seem to be another way to defeat it... Alright, I'll give it back to you, even though you were the one who instructed me not to do that, ever." Her face turned determined all of a sudden.
"But, undr one condition. You will keep visiting here, alright? And you'll go back on your thoughts and fix up our drawing!""Yes." He nodded. She was gonna give him a Persona, huh? And what was that about her keeping it because he said so? Whatever the case, they had to do this.
"What do I have to do?""Give me your hand!" She said with a gleeful smile. He did so. She felt warm to the touch.
"Now repeat after me! You gotta stay really focused on your true emotions, though. If you don't, it might not turn out correctly. Alright, let's do it!" After gaining more distance from the thing, the two stopped, holding together with both hands and loking at each other's eyes.
"I am thou, and thou art I..." She began the chant.
"I am thou, and thou art I...""I call upon thee, my other self, from the sea of my soul...""I call upon thee, my other self, from the sea of my soul...""Arise, my guardian, and light my path to the Sun...""Arise, my guardian, and light my path to the Sun..."As they chanted, Charles could feel something waking up inside of him. It was coming from the girl and flowing through his body. So that's what a Persona feels like...
"The Emperor, the ruler, the embodiment of the Sun! Awaken, Huitzilopochtli*!"
"Persona!"Another figure came out apparently from inside of Charles, rising up to stand against the other one. A smal glint of fire blazed in it's clenched hands, exploding and enveloping everything in a raging inferno...
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Charles woke up in Jack's shack, laying on top of a broken table. Did he break it? That was irrelevant, though. What the heck did he just go through?
"You overcame your ordeal and suppressed once again the darkness inside your heart. Now it is my turn to protect you from it, my host, because, I am thou and thou art I..."A voice rang in his head. Did he...? Yes, he got a Persona! Sure, there were so many unansweredd questions, but he got a Persona, so who cared! What happened to the girl, though... And he had to apologise to Jack and try to explain it to him. He really acted like a fool back then...
When he exited the shack, he realized it had already gotten dark. There was no way Jack would've stayed at the school for so long...
Charles sat by the entrance to the shack, determined to wait until Jack came by the next day...
*note: They call upon Huitzilopochtli because of Charles's plot related reasons. Charles's Persona still awakens as Huitzilihuitl due to his mind and heart not being set on the right decision.
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