Our plan seems to have worked. The exterior of the palace matches the description given by Collin, Kat, and Jason. A blood red sky that seems to be eternally stormy hangs above us as we approach the Victorian mansion. The aesthetics are as striking as they are dreadful.

I reach out with my mind towards the mansion. There are many essences within that I feel, but most feel like hollow shells, mere machinations of the palace. But then I find a stronger one; the aura of someone with a Persona. That must be Charlotte. But something’s wrong with her; she’s motionless and overwhelmed by sadness and fear. I check for Ms. Patel too. There is a murky presence some distance away from Charlotte, flitting through the halls like a specter.

The interior is likewise familiar to the description given to us by Ashley. It resembles an old-fashioned jail built from stone and with what we can reasonably infer are the various patrons of the apartment complex kept behind bars. We come across Charlotte, staring wistfully with tears rolling down her eyes into one cell in particular which contains her mother, lying on the floor with blood pouring from a hole in her neck, her face still and colorless.

“The fuck’s the matter with you?” Nova asks.

Charlotte sniffs loudly, and gestures towards her mother’s corpse. “She killed my mom,” she says.

“No she didn’t, dumbass!” Nova says. “The people here aren’t real!”

“Huh?” Charlotte says, confused.

“God, you're worse than Zoe the first time she was here! Get your ass up!”

Charlotte, looking dumbfounded, takes Nova’s hand and stands up. She looks again at her mother, before grimacing and quickly looking away again. “So she’s… still alive in the real world?”

“Yes!” Nova says emphatically.

“I dunno,” Kevin says nervously. “You can kill people from here, remember?”

“Yes, but if the process were that simple, there would’ve been a sizable number of casualties from previous adventures,” I reason.

“Yeah!” Nova agrees. “Ashley straight up stabbed a bitch, and he popped up again like ten minutes later. Fuck it, I died in one of these once!”

“Then… how did…?” Kevin trails off, looking puzzled.

“I guess that explains why everyone’s acting weird,” Charlotte says.

“So, she attacked the cognitive version of your mom?” I ask, surveying the scene.

“Yeah, she was drinking her blood!” Charlotte explains, revolted. “And because of that, she’s healed, and all the progress I did is undone!”

“So, we don’t let her do that again,” Nova says simply. “She’s toast now. She’ll have no bird, and no way to heal if we keep on top of her. I bet she won’t last a minute.”

“That seems to be our best course of action,” I agree.

“Let’s make her pay,” Charlotte growls.

“She won’t get away again,” Kevin says.

I reach out once more to find her, and direct the others to give chase.

----------------------------------------

Against my better judgment, I let the kids run off to find Zoe. I turn back to Kierstyn.

“So. You admit that you killed her.”

“I had no choice,” she protests weakly.

“There’s ALWAYS a choice!” I shout at her. “She was your sister. And she was my best friend!”

“Is this really what you want to be discussing right now, in these circumstances?” Kierstyn challenges.

I look back at the men, still being frozen in place by Gregg’s power. “What did this lot want with you?”

“It doesn’t concern you, butterfly lady,” the man with the goatee says.

“Maybe not,” I say. “But what does concern me is that my daughter is here. If you laid so much as a finger on her, I will castrate each and every one of you.”

“You pissed off the wrong people this evening,” Gregg taunts.

“We knew that the Thieves in the Night had not totally disbanded,” the goatee says. “For showing your faces, you and all of your families will meet the same fate as your dear best friend.”

“You’re in no position to be making threats,” Kierstyn growls at them. “You’re finished.”

“You think that your betrayal will stop us?” the goatee continues.

“You sick freaks are no longer needed. You will be destroyed under the heel of the governor,” Kierstyn spits at them. “The Queen wills it so as well.”

“Okay, you lost me,” I interject. “What’s this about the governor? And the queen?”

“You are behind the times, dear,” Kierstyn comments snidely.

“The Queen? We have the power of Moloch on our sides!” the goatee shouts back. “If you want war, you’re going to have it.”

“You blithering fools!” Kierstyn shouts. She laughs maniacally for a few seconds. “Moloch is my master! You have no allies left!”

“You’re lying!” the goatee grunts. But there’s a hint of fear in his voice now.

“You will be purged, as will all the rest of the sick individuals in this state!” Kierstyn gloats. “You’re not even a match for my former friend and her husband here. This is the end.”

“You’re right about that much,” I say. “But you’re not off the hook either, Kierstyn. You, a servant of Moloch? You, a murderer? You, a collaborator with pedophiles? It’s clear that you’ve become twisted beyond all recognition.”

“You have no idea what’s going on here,” Kierstyn growls. “If you knew what I knew… why, I bet you don’t even know what your old flame is up to.”

“Who?” I ask.

“You know who! Lucas Delaney, our leader! You don’t know that he’s calling himself ‘Lucy,’ now, and dressing up as a woman! Not to mention, leading your kids and their friends into the war you gave up on!”

“That’s preposterous!” I shout.

“It’s the truth! If you want proof, just ask your dear daughter who’s been egging her on!”

“We will deal with that sometime later,” I say with gritted teeth.

“And what about my best friend?” she presses, pain on her face. “What about Winona? You wanna know who killed her and Seth? It was Lucas!”

“He wouldn’t,” I contradict.

“Why not? You thought I wouldn’t kill anyone either until today, did you not? You haven’t seen him in decades! You didn’t watch him kill them, in a power grab for the Amethyst Stone! You didn’t watch him enlist your children, and my niece, as child soldiers!”

I sigh heavily. As much as I hate to admit it, I really don’t know what’s going on here. I have no basis to judge whether her story is truth or lies.

“Why not get revenge? Let me go, and we’ll both hunt down the one who started it all,” Kierstyn offers, smiling with malice. “Our disgraced former leader turned sicko…”

“Revenge is a quest of pointlessness that only breeds further violence and pain,” Gregg comments, holding one of my hands.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Don’t act so above it all,” Kierstyn sneers at him. “With the power of your Persona, I’m sure you have blood on your hands as well.”

“I really and truly don’t,” Gregg says simply. “I keep my nose clean, you could say. I simply learned from the best there is.”

“And you are correct, Gregg,” I say. “I have no reason to trust anything you say, and the most important thing to me right now is that my children are safe.”

Crystal encases each of the men in turn, and all of them, Kierstyn included, are lowered into the ground, only their heads left uncovered for breathing.

“I will deal with you filth later,” I say. “Come on, Gregg.”

“Right you are, dear,” he says. And the two of us enter the hallway that Ashley and Anja ran into.

----------------------------------------

Ms. Patel retreated to a room attached to the various stone chambers that is significantly cozier. It’s a sitting room, with a black-colored couch seated in front of blood-red window panes, upon which Ms. Patel sips blood from her wine glass while watching a roaring fireplace across from her.

Kevin wastes no time in pointing his gun straight at her. “Die monster,” he says seriously. “You don’t belong in this world!”

Nova chuckles as Ms. Patel hisses, actually hisses like a cat, at us. “I thought you left,” she said.

“And I thought you weren’t a big enough sucker to fall for that, but here we are!” Nova gloats. “Finish it.”

Kevin fires a single silver bullet that perfectly pierces her heart. Ms. Patel shrieks a horrible, piercing shriek, and throws the wine glass to the floor, shattering it, as unnaturally dark blood pours out of her chest cavity.

She’s not quite done yet, though. She leaps to her feet lightning fast, before sinking back into the shadows as usual.

“No more of your tricks!” I say, as I make a pillar of rock shoot up and knock her up from the floor. Unfortunately, this sends her catapulting in my direction, and she barrels into me, knocking me to the ground.

Her blood pouring onto my dress, she leans down for my neck, fangs out…

Bwoosh! She flies off and out of the sitting room as Kevin knocks her on the side of the head. He gives me a hand up to my feet, which I take with a blush.

Ms. Patel is slinking back to one of the cells, eyeing one of her patrons hungrily…

“Nuh-uh!” Nova says. He shoots the bars to the cell with a bolt of lightning, electrifying them. Ms. Patel doesn’t notice in time and gets shocked senseless when she touches them.

Enraged, she slashes at the bars, and with surprising strength, tears them down and throws them on top of us.

“Oof!” I say, as I’m once again knocked to the floor and pinned down.

“She’s approaching a prisoner!” Ruth cries out. “Can anyone get up?”

Nova shouts something, but it’s muffled by his face being pushed into the floor.

Suddenly, the bar lifts off of me, just a little bit. I turn to see Kevin heaving it upwards, just enough to let me free. He nods at me.

I roll out from wreckage, get up, and summon my rocket launcher, ready to aim it right at her…

But Ms. Patel holds something out in front of her as a shield- a person- a little girl, in fact. Bella, that adopted Asian girl with the pigtails, is shaking in fear…

I can’t fire now, it’ll hit the kid!

“You’re a coward!” I scold her. “And a traitor too!”

“Traitor to who?” Ms. Patel asks, smiling in a sinister way, bathed with blood and singed all over, looking as if she’s barely standing, but still there, still holding Bella up as a human shield. “I owe this annoying little shit nothing.”

And she lowers her fangs to Bella’s neck-

No-

I’m gonna-

“Hey, kid,” I say. “Catch.”

And I throw the bottle.

(The bottle? Huh?)

And Bella catches it.

And realization strikes her face.

And then it strikes Ms. Patel, who realizes she isn’t holding her arms.

And Bella swings it upwards and smashes it into her face.

Ms. Patel howls as Bella wriggles free.

“Run,” I say.

She understands, and makes a beeline down the hallways.

And then I aim…

And fire.

BOOM!

----------------------------------------

“Ted?” I ask, looking at him.

“GET BACK TO YOUR ROOMS, NOW!” the man holding Anja shouts. He pushes a button on a walkie-talkie in his shirt pocket. “Backup requested downstairs ASAP. We have a serious security breach…”

The man holding me roughly throws me to the ground, and then walks over me. I turn my head to see the crowd of children cowering away as the man threateningly raises his fists…

“You don’t have to be afraid of them!” Anja says in a rousing voice. “Look at how many of you there are, and how few of them!”

“Shut your mouth, you little cuntrag!” the man holding Anja says, shoving her face into the wall.

Ted starts growling at him- not in his human voice, but a real, animalistic growl- and drops from the dark-skinned girl’s arms to the floor, arching his back threateningly.

A brave look comes over the girl’s face. “Muchos de nosotros, pocos de ellos,” she says. The children behind her start muttering among themselves, in what sounds like various languages.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?” the man who was previously holding me shouts. He reaches out his hand, grabbing the girl’s throat.

I shoot to my feet, and slug the man in the back of the head. He drops the girl and turns to me, a vein bulging in his head, but before he can do anything more, there’s shouting from behind him, and many little hands all reaching out, holding him, clawing him, punching him. He’s quickly pushed to the ground, being trampled by about a dozen angry children.

“Oh, shit!” the man holding Anja says, still holding her against the wall, his face draining of the little color it had.

“Oh shit is right,” I say. I grab him by the waist and throw him to the floor. Immediately, he is assailed by more children, who are kicking him and angrily shouting in various languages.

“Anja?” I say, grabbing her by the shoulders.

She looks bad- her glasses are broken, as is her nose, which is bleeding profusely. She’s also breathing deeply and trembling.

“Is… Zoe in the… BLEH… crowd?” she says, stopping mid-sentence to spit out some of her blood.

I scan the crowd of children, but there’s not so much as a flash of blonde hair in sight.

“She must still be locked up,” I say. “Let’s go get her.”

----------------------------------------

Escaping from the wreckage, the others and I quickly coalesce around Ms. Patel in the… well, it’s not really a cell anymore, it’s more of a pile of rubble. I may have gone too far in some places. Eheheh.

Ms. Patel lays on the ground, now with shrapnel and new cuts and bruises added to the injuries, making her look sort of like a roasted turkey.

“Don’t move. It’s over,” Kevin says, standing over her with his pistol still out.

“I know,” she says hoarsely. “Enough already…”

Nova picks the bottle off the ground, looking at it as if it insulted him. “The fuck did you get this?” he asks, looking to me.

“Uh…” I say, at a loss for words.

Where did I get it?

I just knew I needed something and… it appeared.

Nova’s eyes widen in realization. “Turnip,” he says.

“Pretty sure that’s a bottle,” I say.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “You pulled it… and you pulled those masks earlier.” He gives me a look of jealousy. “That’s OP as fuck.”

“Did I?” I say, confused.

“Charlotte’s skillset is quite unique indeed,” Ruth comments. “But if I may… let’s finish here.”

“Oh yeah. That,” Nova says. He turns to Ms. Patel. “Alright. You’re going to, uh, report that shady ass club to the police and bring an end to this.”

“May I add a corollary, please?” Ruth requests. “Do this in such a way so as to not inevitably lead to your death. You’re quite accustomed to being duplicitous, so I know that’s within your capabilities.”

“You’ll be of no use to us dead,” Kevin says nervously.

“She’s not gonna listen to you!” I say incredulously.

Nova scoffs. “She is now. She doesn’t have a choice. Am I right?” he says, looking back down at Ms. Patel threateningly.

“Yes, yes, I’ll do it,” says Ms. Patel, sounding exhausted. “And Charlotte?”

“Huh?” I say.

“Your family can stay here as long as you need to,” she says. “I’ll reset your rent rates to normal…”

“Yes!” I say, pumping my fist in the air triumphantly.

Ms. Patel fades away into a sort of mist. I think that means we won! Er, the others seem to think so, at least.

----------------------------------------

We pass the time in silence for quite a while. I lose all sense of time. All I know is that, eventually, Intan and I hear raised voices from the hallway. My heart soars right out of my chest when I hear one of them is Anja!

“That’s my friend!” I say hopefully. “We’re going to be free soon!”

“Or, your friend’s in big trouble,” Intan says doubtfully.

But then, the sounds of screaming and fighting- other children shouting in many different languages.

“They’ve revolted,” Intan says, sounding in awe. “Maybe there is a chance…”

I start pounding on the door. “Open the door! We're here!” I shout.

And then it opens, and just as I held out hope for, Ashley is there, and I dive into her arms and we kiss on the mouth, and for a short moment I feel the bliss of finally being reunited.

When we break apart, Intan is looking at us practically starry-eyed.

“You want one too?” Anja asks, grinning from nearby.

“Not with all that blood on your face,” Intan says.

“That’s fair,” Anja concedes.

I turn my head down the hall- a large group of other children are putting up a fight. The two men have managed to crawl away, back towards the door, covering themselves with their arms defensively.

“I hear footsteps!” One of them says hopefully. “Backup has arrived!”

“Oh no,” Ashley groans.

The door slams open to reveal- Ashley’s Mom? With an AR-15? She shoves it into the face of one of the men, who puts his hands up, gaping at her.

“Ashley?” Ashley’s dad calls out, rushing in behind her.

“We’re over here!” Ashley calls.

“Oh dear,” Dad says when he sees Anja. “We’ll get you cleaned up as soon as possible.”

“GET ON THE FLOOR. NOW.” Mom shouts out. Both men get on the floor, as do some of the children, looking at her rifle with frightened eyes. “No no no, not you!” she says to the children, waving at them.

“Yer an ally?” Ted asks her, on the floor in the middle of the crowd.

“That’s my mom, Ted,” Ashley says.

I run into the crowd and scoop Ted into my arms. “This little guy just helped us out!” I explain.

“Howdy there,” Ted greets. “Yer daughter has shown great bravery.”

“WHAT THE HELL?” Mom cries out. “DID THAT ARMADILLO JUST TALK?”

“Excuse me, Red… is your mom okay in the head?” Intan asks Ashley.

“What? Can’t you hear him too?” Ashley retorts indignantly.

“Police are raiding the building,” Dad explains. “They will do what they can for the children.”

“Holy shit!” Anja says sarcastically. “They’re actually doing something for once???”

“That means we need to get out of here, presto,” Mom adds. “We have no realistic explanation for why we’re down here, so the five of us will make our leave through the other world.”

“You mean six of us?” Ashley says, gesturing to Ted.

“I’m sorry, what exactly is the relationship here?” Mom questions, looking at Ted skeptically.

“Intan! You should come with us!” I say, turning to her. “We have space for one more!”

“Zoe, I have my own family back in Borneo, whom I need to return to,” Intan says somberly. “But… thank all of you for what you’ve done today.”

“I hope you find them,” I say, as I give her a final hug. “Thank you for giving me strength.” She hugs me back wordlessly, that rare smile glowing on her face.

The moment is interrupted by more footsteps from upstairs… and then, banging on the door. “APD! OPEN UP!” a stern woman’s voice yells.

“That’s our cue,” Dad says in a low voice. I break my hug with Intan, leaving her somewhat puzzled, and bring Ted into a huddle with Ashley, her parents, and Anja, before we are whisked safely away.