The Edge of the Wall (August's Awakening)

For all the stories that he'd heard, for all the travels that he'd ever imagined, he'd never expected his first trip to the city to end up quite like this.

The last thing he'd known, he'd been walking through Eirini some more, looking at all the various buildings and trying to write down what notes he had from what he'd seen. As much as seeing them from the sky had been an intense and amazing experience, he wanted to learn all he could about the city and he had been writing down notes, trying to remember everything he possibly could. There was so much he wanted to tell people about the world. He'd gone back onto the main road to look through some of the windows of the fancier shops selling strange and exotic devices, and foodstuffs and books and...

And then some huge noise had ripped the sky open - a noise that all but deafened August right there and then. August had attempted to struggle to his feet, dazed and confused - only to be concurrently near-blinded by the light from what he thought was a bolt of lightning (out of a clearly sunny sky?). "W-wha..." he stammered, but even then before he could properly process what was going on, he heard screams from a crowd and the entire world descended into chaos. Something chilled August, right down to the very marrow of his bones. He wanted to freeze, and somewhere in his mind, he could feel himself think, "I wanna go home..."

But then...something in those words made his mind start to spin.

"Are you telling me that's it? That's honestly it?" August forced his legs back under his control. They were still shaking a little - no, he was shaking all over - but something deeper within him was refusing to let him just give in, forcing him to stand as tall as he could. "After all the effort you've gone to get here, you just give up now, right at the first sign of trouble?!" His mind (was it his mind? He didn't remember any kind of inner voice and he didn't think it would have sounded like this) seemed to shout at him.

The young boy couldn't help but feel it was foolishness, but he blinked, and the world started to come back into focus. "I...I don't want it to end like this. There has to be more to it than this. There has to be." he whispered to himself as he finally processed what happened around him, watching a dream turn into a nightmare.

The city was wrapped in chaos. People were fleeing everywhere. The group he'd been with were nowhere to be found - had they fled as well? As he looked up, the once sunny skies had turned to night...no, not even the night was this dark. Or malevolent. Trying to get his bearings, he looked around...something was off. Well, obviously, things were wrong, but something was even more wrong than he'd first thought...and it felt like something was waiting, just hovering out of the corner of his eye. "What's...there...?" August looked around, trying to tame his panic. It felt like something even darker than the night sky above was watching him...waiting...

August had never seen one of them before. Monsters as black as night, but for their masks - cold, bone white, carved through with crimson red. August involuntarily took a step back - he might not have ever seen one of them before, but even for a farmboy way away from the big city, he'd heard of these monsters from ghost stories as a child, the masked monsters, the cruel animals whom took naughty children away in their sleep and gobbled them up...

"...Sfalma." he whispered. Maybe he'd been too far out, but he'd always thought they were little more than stories to terrify children. Now they were frighteningly real, and attacking the city around him. "How are they...real?" he whispered to himself, as if the world was going to magically give him an answer. Even the guards were struggling against these creatures, what could just a boy possibly do...?

And then he heard a voice from behind him. August spun faster than he thought he could. A strange girl, one he'd never seen before, stood there. Her eyes pierced right through to his soul - to an extent he almost forgot about the Sfalma nearby. "W-who are...?" he started, but the girl ignored him. Somehow, even August realised it was a stupid question to ask, but he wasn't quite sure why yet.

"Eat me...? They..." August started, frightened...but then he looked back at the guards. They were holding the monsters for now, but they couldn't hold all of them back - could they? "I..."

His right hand curled up into a fist. "If...if they get past the guards...they'll hurt people, won't they?" There was something within him, calling on him to stand tall. "They'll...they'll hurt everyone. They'll hurt Ma and Pa...my grandfolks...and lil' Mary...as well as everyone here...I..." His fingernails clenched into his fist, and he stared at the Sfalma. He wasn't sure, but he felt like the same tint in the girl's eyes was somewhere in his own.

"No. I'm scared." August said, and it was true. He could barely stop himself from shaking again. "But I can't let that happen. I won't let it happen. I...I..."

And then, all of a sudden, August felt something within him. And he knew what he was supposed to do. He closed his eyes and focused. It was suddenly like there was nothing else around him, nothing but him...and the force within him. And he spoke out loud with the words that resonated in his heart...

"I art thou...Thou art I...From the sea of thy soul, I come..."

A strong, powerful voice resonated in August's head. "I am Hadrian, and no force shall break us..."

And as August opened his eyes, a card floated above his hand. And August smiled, because right now, he was certain - there was nothing he couldn't accomplish. "They're not...getting past me!" He shouted, and crushed the card in his hand. "Persona!"

A whirlwind of power blasted around him, and behind him something took form - a huge suit of armour, a towering, shining shield in it's left hand and a gleaming sword in it's right. August knew this, even though he hadn't turned around - after all, why wouldn't he know something that was a part of him? He looked down at his hands - and realised...no, he'd already known he was holding a quarterstaff, somehow. His parents had taught him a long time how to use one, just in case he needed to fend off bandits (though it had never happened). Still, he'd enjoyed it so much that from time to time he practiced with one - and this looked and felt exactly like the one he'd spun around so many times at home.

He looekd up. Were the guards still holding out? He looked around, gripping his staff tightly (and then breathing in and relaxing it a little) and looking around. If any Sfalma had gotten past the guards...well, then it'd be up to August to do something about it. "Now...I guess that adventure is really about to get goin'." he thought to himself.

Even as the Sfalma charged, August gripped his quarterstaff tight - sure, it might be something like...five onto one, but he'd give it his all if that was what it called for. As they got closer and closer, August briefly heard the words Euny was saying, but didn't quite process them until all of a sudden, a green barrier flashed around his sight, surrounding only himself and one of the Sfalma - which looked like one of the smaller ones of the charging horde. The Sfalma seemed just as confused as August was, but he was too busy worrying about the monster to care about why this was happening.

August watched the Wolf Sfalma carefully - he was worried about Euny, certainly, but he was reasonably certain that if Euny could do this, then she'd have no problem. Better for now that he worried about himself, and what that Wolf was going to do to him if he got too close. It seemed a little risky striking with his quarterstaff when the beast could just as easily tear his arm off...but what about his Persona? It was time to see what they could truly do now. "Let's get it done! Persona!" he called, focusing on attacking the monster.

The mighty suit of armour moved towards the Wolf Sfalma, thrusting it's sword towards the monster, a practiced manuever intending to impale it repeatedly...!

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Edit: Missed adding in Critical rolls for Double Fangs attack. Adding those in here:

August Actions:

August couldn't help but slump - what just happened? He knew he'd been going for a long walk beforehand sure, but there was no way he should have felt this exhausted already. No, it had to be the beast...it had done something to him that wore him dry, as exhausted as he'd felt after a full day's work growing fruits and vegetables on his parent's farm. Which might have been fine then, but in the middle of a battle it was going to be a problem if he couldn't move...

"...I don't care. If I can stop even one of these things getting through..." Work had never bothered him as much as it should. He'd gone through far worse than just a bit of exhaustion. He forced his weary body to stand as tall as he could. There was no way he was giving up this early. "H-Hadrian! Do it again!" he called out. Listening carefully, one could hear a slight strain in his voice - August was, after all, unused to magic of this kind.

Hadrian was definitely moving slower than he had before, but he still stood as tall as ever regardless. Even though it was slightly slower, he still ran towards the Sfalma, the strange green tint of the barrier shining off his blade, as he thrust the shortsword down towards the Sfalma's head...

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Correction - did not take into account HP loss for August from using Double Fangs twice. HP should now be (106-16)= 90 after second use of Double Fangs.

Edit: Re-rolling as per Aigis' instructions. (I presume the strength listed under the stats allows me to only have to add 2 extra numbers instead of 3, sorry if that's wrong)

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Maybe it was because he was moving slower, but the beast still managed to easily dodge the Persona's thrusts as if he was dancing around them. August was already caught off-guard having not been able to hit the beast, which didn't help when it suddenly leapt at August, claws glistening. August had enough presence of mind to step back a bit, but the beast's claws still managed to rake him, leaving a painful scratch. "Gah..." August stepped back. The pain throbbed through him, though it didn't quite shake off the strange feeling of exhaustion. Euny's words weren't particularly helping, but she did have a point...

"...hah...I'll be beat before this thing if we just keep tradin' blows. There has'ta be a better way..." August gripped his staff tight and looked at the strange screen that the greenette had presented for him about the beast. "If that's the case...it's worse up close?" An idea started to form in the young boy's mind - would it work? Maybe not, but it was a better idea than just trying to blindly shank the beast until it or August fell down.

August gripped near one end of his quarterstaff and swung it in a horizontal arc in front of him as hard as he could. Even if it didn't hit, it didn't matter too much as long as he could make the beast back off a bit...

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Edit: Forgot to add in the criticals to the Dex attack in last post. On a side note, I apologise for the edit in the previous post - I wanted to fix up some grammatical errors in the text but I wasn't aware doing so changed the randomiser as well.

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