Deep In The Heart

<Anja>

Floating down gives me quite a trippy sight- what used to be the metal floor on one side, what used to be the ceiling on the other. Grated hanging lights are now twisted sideways and limp, several of the incandescent bulbs broken and dimmed, sending glass tumbling to the… wall that's now the floor. Down the way, I see the wreckage of various stalls and stands; the wall-floor littered with broken parts of tents, shattered glasses, and a few unconscious people dressed in black who I guess didn't make it into the stadium.

And then, right below me, thankfully avoiding the opening into the bathroom, lay Ashley and Ted. Ashley grunts and rolls over as I approach. She is indeed bleeding, a few trickles of blood leaking out from dents in her armor that must have cut her skin. Ted doesn't seem that hurt, though.

"I gotcha," I tell her, landing gracefully and laying my hand on a dry part of her armor. When I feel the cool metal, I cast my healing spell, wiping away the blood and even seemingly repairing the dents in the armor.

Ashley breathes a sigh of relief. "You realize that Ted could've done that, right?" she asks.

I grin at Ted. "Well, why wasn't he then?" I inquire.

"Was about to," Ted grumbles.

She pushes herself up to a standing position and examines her surroundings. "Well, guess we're not making it to the helicopter."

What happened? Ruth's voice slams into our heads, right on cue.

Fell, Ashley thinks simply. We're okay, though. For now.

You won't be for long, Ruth thinks at us sharply. Have you seen what this thing is turning into?

In unison, the three of us look up.

With our segment properly turned ninety degrees, it hadn't occurred to me yet that we have a clear view of the sky. But what draws our eyes now is what's happening along the side of the stadium. Previously unseen doorways were opening up, and pushed up to the surface were guns, turrets, artillery, outfitting the stadium like it's a frigate from Star Wars.

You need to warn Nova and Charlotte, I interject to Ruth. They're gonna get shot down!

I have, Ruth says. Nova is still set on the helicopter plan.

Well. I WAS the one who told him to believe in himself.

The monkey's paw curls, I guess.

Ruth, Ashley thinks inquisitively, what do you think are the chances one of those guns turns down at us and…

Damn it, Ashley, you jinxed it! Because at that moment, a single gun turns down towards us, and fires a single, slow moving shot.

I'm about to freak out when I notice that its trajectory is not taking it anywhere particularly close to us. It crashes with a Boom by the edge of what we can see around the curve.

I snort. "Good job, idiots, you missed."

"That wasn't aimed at us, Anja," Ashley says. "I think it's time we left the vicinity."

I see what she means right after. While the shot didn't do too much in the way of immediate environmental damage, I notice that it did leave behind a tall fire; one that seems to be spreading unnaturally across the floor, like a living thing determined to swallow the whole place whole. The stands and wooden bits of debris it comes across make the fire more fierce, more ravenous. And it's coming straight for us.

I rapidly whirl around, looking for an exit, a ladder, jutting bits of the wall to platform across, something. But there's nothing like that. We're standing on what used to be the outer wall; the "walls" are the floor and ceiling. The only climbable things I can see are the broken lights on one side, but they're spaced too far apart for climbing.

Ruth! Find us a way out! I urge, pulse starting to race.

There isn't any easy way out, Ruth responds. Just use Ashley's flaming form.

I whirl around to face Ashley. "Shit, I forgot about that!" I admit.

Ashley nods. She closes her eyes, and after a moment, fire begins sparking across her armor, growing larger and larger until it's engulfing her. She emerges in that sick magical girl outfit from way back when; orange flame patterns surrounding a black heart, that one pink gemstone she has glowing strong enough to make glare on my glasses, her body now adorned with spikes and her hair tied up into two tails.

She scoops Ted into her arms with one hand, and reaches the other to me, already starting to lilt into the air.

I reach for her hand… and it burns me. I retract it unthinkingly, the blazing heat a mere inch away from cooking my flesh.

Her face falls. "But… Ted is… right, he's…"

I shake my head. "Shit. Sorry Ashley, that's…"

"I'm not leaving you down here!" she snaps at me suddenly. "I don't know, can't you use your wind powers or something to get up?"

I shake my head. "Nope. I can only glide, at best. And that won't be enough."

I feel that same heat again, but not from Ashley. I yelp and scamper forward, turning to see that the fire has caught up to us. We have seconds before I become Roast Anja.

"Well… make up a new power!" Ashley barks, a rare hysteria creeping into her voice. "Charlotte can do it, why can't you?"

"How would I…" Hmm.

H-hey? Gay little voice in my head? I say. It's been a while since we talked. I could really use a new trick or two right now.

Amazingly, I hear it again; that effeminate male voice, the one I heard way back in… well…

Ohoh? he says. I grant you all this power, and it's not enough for you? Am I not good enough?

Listen, you've been doing great up to now! I say, watching as the flames come close to singeing my dress. But things have changed…

That they have, he says.

And there I am again. A pond in the middle of the lush, peaceful forest. And there he is. That beautiful, mostly naked, man. Look back at me from a reflection in the pool.

And there for a moment, I can't hold it back anymore. The last time I was here… the moment I repressed, that I tried to forget. That I covered up with lame jokes and playful banter. Those horrible vines… I was powerless. And now, I'm about to be burned alive. I start shaking and panting involuntarily, on the edge of a panic attack, past trauma and current stress on the verge of overwhelming me.

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I struggle to slow my breathing, to retain control. My name is Anja Beulen. I'm the daughter of Benjamin Beulen and Ellen Beatty. I'm an only child. I'm dating Nova Mosely. I'm currently in some sort of… pocket dimension in my own brain, or whatever, with a naked gay man. He likes staring at his own reflection. I like to as well, but I probably shouldn't. My own eyes are staring back at me. They were dilated from panic, but they seem to be narrowing a bit again. Good, it's working. There's green grass around me, and trees surrounding us. It's quiet; nobody here but me and him.

I take a deep breath.

I don't know exactly why I want to do this- idk, it makes sense on a gut level- but I feel the overwhelming urge to throw myself into the pool. Maybe because I was just around fire and my brain's taking things too literally?

"You can't really be thinking of jumping into my pool," he says haughtily. "I thought we had an agreement."

I look up at him and shrug my shoulders. "Hey, two steps forward, one step back, right? At least the water's clean this time." But I don't really even know what I mean by that.

He giggles and shakes his head. "Then what is the problem here, exactly?"

I briefly look back down at my reflection and sigh, before looking back to him.

"Well, ignoring for a moment the fact that I'm about to burn alive," I say, "I dunno. I don't feel like the advice of a dude who spends all his time staring at his reflection is gonna help much here."

He looks down at the poor and starts fussing with his hair, as if I made him self-conscious. "Why do you wound me so, Anja?"

"Because, I don't know if you've fuckin' noticed, but we're basically at war here!" I say. "This isn't about me anymore. It's not about saving my ass. We HAVE to win this. For all the vulnerable people under attack right now. Maybe even for freedom and democracy itself!"

"Then why did you jump?" He asks plainly.

I wince, the question like a punch in the gut. "Because… well…"

"I told you," he continues darkly, "That it was your time to choose what is right, rather than what is easy."

I sigh, looking away. He's right, of course. I take a moment to collect my thoughts.

Maybe Ashley is right that the palace was having some weird affect on my mental state, like that one time way back in the chamber at Pavia's palace. But, it affected Ashley and I in pretty different ways. How it affected Ashley was predictable to me, as someone who's known her for half a year now and is painfully aware of her faults as a person. So perhaps the same is true of me.

I surprise myself when the words begin spilling out.

"I lost sight of it… I'm sorry," I say. "I guess I just… I told myself this story for so long. That I was Anja, the outcast, the dyke, the idealist, whose activist mother died tragically failing to change a broken system. That I was doomed to the same fate. I spent so much time in that shitty story that I missed the great one that was happening under my nose. The story of Anja, who managed to find snatches of joy, despite everything. Who found love and friendship. Who managed to make a difference. Who honors the dead by saving the living. The story of a god damned Thief in the Night."

There's a pause, a suspended moment of silence.

Finally, I look back to the man by the pool. His insecure attitude from before is gone… his face is smiling and relaxed, at peace. A sigh of relief after a long day.

"I know full well what you need," he says loftily. "I didn't know if you were ready… but I suppose you may be now. What was that you said… you're at war?"

"Er, not literally," I say. "But we're fighting for our lives here…"

"Of course, of course," he says, smiling with one last hint of that playful smirk. "Okay, you've convinced me. Get into the pool."

I frown. "Wait, really?"

He nods.

I look at my reflection one last time. It nods back at me.

Well, no need to tell me… a third time. I leap into the pool.

And then, to my amazement, I hear something like the sound of a whistle, and things change.

The water of the pool washes over my skin and my clothes, and then ceases to be. I'm left sitting on dry ground, the soil beneath my feet loose and sandy. Yet I feel as clean and rejuvenated as ever. Like when you take a nice shower and come out feeling like a new gal.

The figure in front of me has… transitioned? The same flowing, blonde hair, the same bewitching beauty, the same rather scant lack of clothes- but the figure in front of me now is undeniably female, her face smoothed and round, her chest now (barely) covered with a matching cloth wrapped around her torso. A feature that somehow adds yet to her beauty are the large ram horns coming out of her head, a reminder that this is a being who is not really human. But what really feels different is what the senses other than my eyes tell me. This woman has an undeniable aura of strong power. Someone who could lead armies, demand obedience, rule. And seeing her gives me the strangest flutter of something between relief and euphoria.

I think I might've changed too- I think I feel some extra body parts I didn't have before, some extra clothes I don't remember changing into.

But before I can try and examine myself, she speaks- her voice a stately command that demands all who hear to bend the knee. "Quite an unjust game you've found yourself playing," she tuts at me. "Your chances of winning are almost none. But you remembered your vows and called my name, so perhaps there is hope for you yet."

I nod in agreement, drinking in every word.

"You are right, Anja. We're at war. Against foes more ancient and entrenched than you even realize. I need soldiers, Anja."

"Yes ma'am!" I say.

She puts a hand to her chin. "But you're no brute, Anja. I have a… special task for you. This is modern warfare; we need special ops. You will need new tools yet. Take my gifts, Anja, and save the world."

I jump to my feet. "I will. I'll make you proud."

With nothing left to say, the illusion melts away, and I can feel my mind returning to my body, to the now. But I swear that as it melts, I hear one last familiar whisper. It said something like…

I'm already proud.

It was a moment suspended in time, within another moment suspended in time. A moment-ception.

Putting aside whatever metaphorical subconscious talk I had with my persona, I'm still currently engulfed in a ring of fire. A ring of fire amidst a whole firestorm that is swallowing whole this section of hallway, marking the floor we had just been running across a few minutes ago with soot and ash.

I gotta get out of here- and I should have the powers to do so now, although I'm not yet sure what form that will take. There's no time to explain anything or bounce ideas off of Ashley, who's currently looking at me like I grew a third head. This does make me wonder how my appearance changed, but later. At least Ted seems unperturbed.

So rather than make this a big dramatic reveal, I act on instinct.

Without really even thinking about why, I make a break towards the wall that was once the ceiling. Nothing to grab hold of, except for the hanging lights, but most of them are already shattered anyway.

Powers are pretty intuitive, right? I'll just try climbing it. Maybe I have webbed hands and feet now!

…I don't have webbed hands and feet.

"Weren't you supposed to get a new power?" Ashley's voice says, hovering over me. I turn to see that she and Ted are hovering several feet in the air. "Don't tell me you changed your Persona just to become a furry!"

"A… what?" I say, momentarily struck dumb.

Then I feel something very hot by my ankles.

Shit shit shit. Okay, um, yes. I changed my Persona. And I got…

"You will need new tools yet."

…TOOLS! So I must have them in a…

I scramble my handles across my body, feeling for some pouch, backpack, pocket, Victoria's Secret compartment, SOMETHING to keep things in… when I look down, I notice that my dress has changed- it has kept its vibrant red color, but has a firmer, rougher texture, and now parts to hang around my side. It's ceased to be a dress and is now more of a longcoat. Thankfully, I'm also now wearing black tights underneath. And it's down there on my left thigh that I see- a pouch fastened tight, hidden from outside view by the coat. I reach in, desperately hoping to find something I can put to use here…

Perfect! A grappling hook. It's definitely too large to fit in there; it seems I have myself a bag of holding. It's a sophisticated model; built like a gun that shoots out rope, and four hooks in a cross pattern at the end.

Hoping very much that they're anchored well enough to not be ripped out of the ceiling-wall by my weight, I aim upwards towards the nearest bent-sideways light fixture. The rope shoots out lightning fast at the press of my trigger. Now having a bit of experience with gun-toting, my aim is true.

I release the button and zip up the side of the wall until I'm dangling close enough to the light fixture to grab it with one hand. I aim at the next light and continue my ascent. One by one, I swing my way to safety and freedom. Once I'm far enough from the raging fire to not feel its cruel sting on my flesh, my body practically deflates with relief. The release of my panic leaves me feeling strangely tired; but I know that I can't rest yet. It's time to finish this once and for all.

Finally, I reach the top; the lip where this hall used to connect to the stadium gives me just enough ground to stand on as I scramble up to my feet. Ashley lands herself neatly beside and exits the flaming form, panting. Ted remains perched on her, beholding me with interest.

"Turns out these Persona things are pretty versatile, huh?" I say, as I finally pull myself up to a standing position. I shoot Ashley and Ted a grin.

"It took somethin' special to bring that change," Ted says. "Yer growin' up."

"What are you supposed to be, anyway?" Ashley questions. "Some sort of furry superspy?"

"...Why do you keep calling me a furry?" I ask.

"You haven't noticed yet?" Ashley says, a small grin of amusement creeping onto the corners of her mouth. "Look behind you."

And sure enough, I turn to look over my shoulder, and am not sure whether to be horrified or amused when I see it. Coming out from the tails of my new red coat is a… literal tail. A large, bushy, black-and-grey striped tail, flared out near the base until tapering into a fine-tipped point. I wag it back and forth a bit, and realize that if I'm making it move, then it is undeniably a part of my physical body and not just a prop.

I scream.