Chapter Text
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE TO SACRIFICE ARSENE!?"
Ren rattled the bars of his prison, causing the chains on his hands to hit the bars and make loud metal noises. Which caused Caroline to hit the bars with her baton, making an even louder noise.
"Don't shout at our master inmate!"
Justine, seemingly unbothered by the noises just turned to him.
"It is necessary for your rehabilitation, inmate. Please do as our master asks."
"Can't I just fuse the Pixie with the pumpkin headed thing I found?"
"No, your level is too low to fuse that one."
"Then let me grind a bit or something, don't make me guillotine Arsene! He's my favorite Persona."
"You can always just buy him back from the compendium, any persona you have had will be registered there."
Caroline, getting impatient, hits the bars once again. While Ren was surprised by this, Justine didn't even react, that's just how often this happens.
"Hurry up inmate! Just shove it in the guillotine already! Times ticking!"
"Fine! Fine! You better not be lying about the compendium thing!"
Arsene then appeared in front of him, giving him a speech about 'We will meet again' which was kind of redundant because he was planning on getting him back, but he lets Arsene have his moment.
He watches as the twins cover arsene and the poor pixie who joined him because she had no money, he feels a little guilty that he's killing her, just a little bit.
Once they were under the guillotine, everyone in the room watched in anticipation as the blades went down, severing their heads to create... a floating pot with a little blue gremlin in it.
What the fuck.
"Hey hey there, I'm Agathion! Let's have some fun, yeah!"
Okay, it's kind of cute, but that was very anticlimactic, Ren thought Arsene would've made something cooler.
"Alright where's that compendium?" Ren addresses Justine.
"Don't be so hasty inmate." Scoffed Justine, though she did give him the compendium.
When he opened it, Ren was surprised that it's almost completely full, as if someone else had filled it in before he got here. What's even weirder was that the Arsene registered in it was level 56! When has he ever been that high-level? He even had passives that eliminated his weaknesses.
"Hey Justine? Why is it already full?"
"Hmm?" Justine takes the compendium from him and looks through it. "It seems it's already over 75% full. Impressive inmate, now you can have a discount when buying personas from the compendium."
"Almost all of these personas are much higher level than me, do you think I can handle them?"
"Sure."
"But you won't let me fuse something that's only one level above me."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because you can't handle it's power."
Does she not see how that doesn't make sense!?
He looks through the compendium again, realizing it's only 97% complete, he wonders how much the discount would be if it was at 100%.
Just then, something catches his eye.
Satanael - lvl 99
Level 99! That's the highest level right!? And he had just enough yen to buy it. Though if he did buy it he wouldn't be able to buy Arsene. But if he just bought a really powerful one, he could make his money back easier right? It had some interesting (and expensive) skills, but it had a passive that would heal him if he won! That's just too good to pass up.
He'll buy Arsene later, the one in the compendium was already pretty strong anyway, he'll have to find the money first though.
He buys Satanael from Justine, who swears she has no idea who filled the compendium before him.
Everything else he wanted to talk about evacuated his mind when he sees Satanael though.
It was an absolutely gigantic demon with six pairs of wings and a shiny golden mask that brings out the seriousness of his glowing red eyes, when he looked down, he could see that it wears a general uniform and has a BIG FUCKING GUN. It was pretty intimidating, he could even see Igor sweating a little and averting his eyes from it.
This thing isn't gonna eat his soul or anything right? He's almost to scared to wear its mask.
Caroline was visibly shaken by it, but when it disappeared into his face she immediately turns to him.
"You need anything else inmate?"
"No."
"Then leave, your not gonna complete your rehabilitation by just dilly-dallying here for hours."
Well it seems someone else has been 'dilly-dallying here for hours' and made a bunch of strong personas, don't they want him to complete it?
"Guess I'll leave then, bye?"
"Yes, goodbye inmate, come back when you have more personas." Justine says, peeking at the compendium a bit.
"Dude, are you alright? You've been standing there for like, 30 minutes." Ryuji waved his hand in front of Ren's face, but there was no reaction.
"He's still doing that?" Morgana walked up to them, worried about Ren.
"Frick, I didn't want to do this but, it might be the only way to get him back."
"What are you doing Skull?" Ann asked him as she walks right up them.
Ryuji rears back his arm and accelerates his palm towards Ren's face before either Ann or Morgana can stop him.
Then Ren woke up.
"Hey guys sorry about that, I had to do some things-"
And then he was slapped.
But it didn't hurt at all, his skin seemed to have absorbed the impact.
Ryuji quickly reared his arm back again.
"Oh! Uh, hehe hey dude, what took you so long?"
"I had some business to attend to."
"Dude you sound like you were doing something shady."
Well he did just kill two beings to create another being, guess that is kind of shady.
"Let's just get in, we've got a lot to do today."
So into the palace they go.
The first enemies they encountered were some Pixies and Jack o lanterns, all weak to gun, perfect for testing out his new persona.
"Satanael!"
It was so big it barely fit in the hall, it's head hot the ceiling and left a huge hole in it, but it didn't seem to care and raised it's gun in the air, creating another hole in the ceiling.
A rain of bullets went down on the poor shadows who couldn't even react before the were shot down, killing them instantly.
That might be a problem if he can't get new personas, then again the ones here are pretty cheap so it doesn't really matter.
He turns towards his friends, seeing them with their jaws on the floor was pretty damn funny, Ryuji didn't even react when a small piece of the broken ceiling hit him on the head.
This goes on for at least a minute before Ryuji comes back to his senses and, in true Ryuji fashion, shouts:
"HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!?"
His outburst worked to wake Ann and Morgana, who promptly picked their jaws off the floor.
"Where did you get that!? We never fought anything like that!" Morgana, looked between him and the ceiling, "And why was it so big!?"
"Wait wait wait! What do you mean 'get'? You can get other personas?" Ann asked Morgana.
He used Jack o lantern while fighting the toilet demon because it was the only on that had a fire spell, he realizes it might have looked ridiculous to her since she doesn't know he can use multiple.
After Morgana explains it to her, they turn to him and ask for an explanation for the giant, hella strong persona that he couldn't have gotten the normal way.
For some reason, everytime he tries to say anything about the velvet room, his tongue just stops working, so he went with:
"I bought it."
Morgana looked even more confused, raising his eyebrow a little.
"You bought it? Where? When?"
"In Prison. When I was spacing out."
At this, Morgana's eyebrow raised ever so slightly.
"You're not hallucinating are you?"
"Did that look like a hallucination to you?"
"Guess not."
As there is literally no better explanation he could give them, he just got them to continue Kamoshida's palace.
"You know dude, if it's that big, you could probably just have it step on the shadows."
"Now that's something to try, good idea Ryuji."
This persona is sick as hell.
Once he got to a high enough level that he could use it's powerful magic attacks, there was absolutely nothing that could stop him, especially when he fully heals after every battle, he even learned that Beriths were immune to gun! That was pretty frustrating, but he just used the one more from the Pixies who were weak to it and used megidolaon.
Speaking of immunities, it seems that physical attacks not only don't hurt him, but also heal him! Must be what 'Drain Phys' means.
He was able to carry the team until the very end, finishing the huge castle in a matter of hours, all while punching some holes in the ceiling along the way.
He even had Satanael shoot Kamoshida's stupid portrait in the face, alerting many guards that he had also had Satanael shoot to get some experience for everyone.
Thanks to everyone being in good shape, and thanks to satanael basically insta-killing everything, they manage to get a bunch of experiece in preparation for stealing the treasure, it never hurts to be ready.
"Dude, that persona is awesome!" Ryuji says, after the hundredth Berith he killed.
"What time is it? We've probably been here for hours." Ann asks the group, checking the time on her phone, "Why don't we go back? We've gotten so strong the shadows here are actually running away from us."
"Uhh, how bout after ten more shadows?"
"I think that persona is making you a little too trigger-happy."
'A little' is an understatement, but he agreed to go back and send the card tomorrow.
This is it, this is the day they have all been waiting for, this is the day they steal Kamoshida's heart.
Getting to the throne room was pretty easy, they just teleported to the safe room right outside it.
"Huh, the doors are open, and where are all the guards?" Ryuji makes an uncharacteristically astute observation.
"They must been downstairs, the shadows don't know about safe rooms after all, they probably don't have enough to put in every corner of the palace, especially after what happened last time." Morgana says, reminding everyone of the shadows they, or more accurately, Joker slayed.
"A little genocide is necessary sometimes okay?"
"No it wasn't, all we have to do is steal the treasure. It's not like we're gonna have to fight Kamoshida or something."
"And you've just jinxed it. Also this huge throne room with it's doors wide open is the most obvious trap ever. I promise, you'll be glad we trained."
Why the fuck is this crown so fucking big? Can't it be smaller so we can just take it and run right out?
"Go go Ka-mo-shi-da!"
Ah, there it is. The stupidly obvious trap has been sprung.
The crown was knocked out of their hands by a volleyball, then teleported to it's owners hand with a flash of light.
Oh so now it's smaller, okay.
When Shadow Kamoshida showed signs of beggining a stupid, self-absorbed monologue, Ren summoned Satanael to shoot the crown off his head. Which he immediately picked back up and tried to blow the dust off of.
How the hell it's even still intact boggles him.
"Y-you damn kids! I'll have you know that this is more important than all of your lives combined!" Shadow Kamoshida, stuttered a little, but it was actually impressive how composed he was in the face of a giant, gun-wielding demon.
Shadow Kamoshida then reveals his own giant demon form, it was more disgusting than intimidating though, especially the long, spit covered tongue
"Ewww! That gross!" Ann said, then shrieked when the giant pink demon that was supposedly Kamoshida started ogling her.
But his ogling was cut short by a black viper straight to the dome, courtesy of Satanael of course.
When he healed it with his trophy, Ren had Satanael use riot gun to hit both of them at once, breaking the trophy.
"Hey! This was from when I won the national!"
"And let me guess! It's more valuable than Shiho's life!?" Ann shouted at him.
"Of course it is!"
"Figures."
And then she threw a fireball in his face.
It didn't take long to beat Shadow Kamoshida, and it took even shorter for him to start begging for his life. When he tried getting closer to Ann, Ren had Satanael point it's gun at him, making him fall on his ass and crawl back.
Ann decided to keep him alive so he could rot in prison and then went to leave the palace when it started crumbling.
The safe room was probably too dangerous to get to now so Ren summoned Satanael to scoop them all into his arms and fly them out the balcony. It was smaller than the huge persona but that didn't matter, it just burst through the wall around it like the kool-aid man and flew to the entrance and right out of the metaverse.
The next day he went to the velvet room after school, thank Satanael he was able to grind enough to buy Arsene, he was just that attached to him.
"I wasn't really expecting to be summoned again so soon, Ren, not that it's not nice to see you again."
"Yeah, funny enough I was actually planning on summoning you immediately after you were executed."
"Ah, it seems theres someone new in here, hello there."
"Hello." Says a voice he has never heard before, it sounds like Arsene, but a lot deeper. Was that Satanael?
"You could talk all this time? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't find it necessary."
So it was cheeky huh? Ren thinks addressing the persona as an 'it' just feels weird now.
So he was cheeky huh?
"Can the other two talk in there?" The other two being the Jack o lantern and Agathion of course.
"They can talk to me, but not to you, though they don't seem to want to talk to me, they have been hugging each other in a corner ever since I was summoned."
Oh, the poor things.
"Wait, is there any significance as to why only you and Arsene can talk to me when none of the other personas can?"
"There might be."
"Might?"
"Hey inmate!" The bars of the prison rattled with a hit from Caroline's baton, "If you're done here get out! Stop spacing out!"
"Alright alright I'm leaving!"
Once he was outside, he walked out of the alley, hoping no one saw him spacing out for 20 minutes. It's about that time when his stomach starts to rumble.
"Wonder what I should eat today."
"The souls of the sinful." Strangely, that was Arsene's suggestion.
Ren seriously thought it over, as if he actually knew how to eat someone's soul.
"Any other suggestions?"
"How about the souls of the damned?"
"What's the difference?"
"There are a couple."
"How about a big bang burger?" That stuff was probably made of the souls of minimum wage workers.
"Sure."