7 Mementos

Y/n: "Your Name"

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Y/n's POV:

(A/n: "Recommended song: Aria of the soul from Persona 3")

"Ah, welcome again dear guest." Igor said with a chuckle, "It seems you have formed yet another bond which may help you in your journey."

"Even the dimmest of stars can produce heat and warmth..." Igor chuckled, "The stars sometimes are too bright to be captured on film – Ah! I must tell you of another ability that seems to have been presented to you." Igor said as I looked around the theater play.

"Well... telling you might take all the fun out of it." He chuckled, "I see you have not yet entered the world of desires – you might not feel it – but you are ready..." Igor snapped his fingers and a small card appeared from the ceiling, "Let me give you a hint," he said as the card slowly descended, "If you were to meet other monsters, beings or demons – how about you take out your scroll – after that it should be instinct." Igor said with a chuckle.

The card floated down enough for me to see what was drawn on it. Above the number XVII was written – on the card there was a drawing of a man or woman(I wasn't too sure which) drinking out of a vase in a starry night.

I clenched my fist around it and it shattered. I looked up and saw Violet stand up.

"You've gained the arcana of the Star from forming a bond with Velvet Scarlatina, deepen this bond and you might gain skills and abilities from the arcana." Violet said, "I must say performer." said Violet with a monotonous tone, "I never imagined you to gain bonds this quickly. Until the next time then." she sat back down.

_______

I woke up and looked around my room.

I got up and took my scroll.

"Guess it's time..." I said, looking around my scroll apps. In it I found the metaverse navigator. it was time for me to finally use it.

I took a deep breath and opened the app.

<Name: >

<Localization:>

<Distortion:>

"The palace of everyone, mementos." I said, the phone buzzed twice then the screen changed to a red with a notification saying "Location found." I hummed and saw everything around me slowly distort.

The first thing I thought when looking at my new location was, 'Why is everything so red?'

Everything was either a different shade of red or black and there didn't seem to be any other colors here.

I looked at my hands, the watch was there, but apart from that there was no outfit change like I expected. 'Hmmm, this is mildly disappointing.' I thought, sighing.

I really wanted Joker's outfit while traversing mementos – then I would really get into battling.

I walked forwards, making sure to remember my way to the place I was in. There weren't many shadows around – weird because from what I remember in the games this is infested with shadows.

I continued walking until I reached some train tracks in a subway station. I hummed and tried to look a bit further. There was a pitch black being with a weird silver mask, it was humanoid but didn't seem to be... well alive, it stood in the same place – moving it's head up and down.

I walked towards it – the moment I entered the station the being's head immediately turned towards me. It then exploded in a sea of red and black goo – breaking the mask it wore in the process.

In front of me now was a different creature. It was a liquid–like being with a viscous body, two red eyes and one mouth. It did not have neither arms nor legs, it seemed like it only had a head on top of it's body.

As soon as I saw it my vision blurred for a second and a small screen appeared in-front of me showing the shadow's stats.

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<Stats>

Name: Slime

LvL: 10 (0/829)

Arcana: Chariot

Strength: 11

Magic: 4

Endurance: 9

Agility: 5

Luck: 8

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'...' I didn't really know what to think.

Instead of focusing on the weird screen in-front of me I pressed the button on my watch.

"Helios!" I called my persona. I turned around and looked at Helios.

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<Stats>

Name: Helios

LvL: 11 (3/847)

Arcana: Fool

Weakness: Curse, Wind

Resistant: Ice

Absorbs: Fire

Blocks: None

Reflects: None

Strength: 8

Magic: 10

Endurance: 6

Agility: 8

Luck: 8

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- Burning Regeneration (The more fire around you the more powerful the regeneration)

- Agi (Light fire damage to 1 target)

- Cleave (Light physical damage to 1 target)

- Rakunda(Lowers defence of 1 target for 3 minutes)

- Magic Ability (Increases own spell power by 25%)

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'Helios is level 10?' I questioned, looking at his stats, 'Is that because I trained with him these few weeks? Or because I defeated Roman and his men a few weeks back?' I asked myself, turning around to look at the slime glow an orange-ish color.

'What?' I asked, feeling my body suddenly weaken.

'I see.' I got up and glared at the slime. I wasn't sure just how much a bullet would do in this situation, so I looked at Helios and then at the slime.

As if knowing what I wanted it to do, Helios rose his arm and then snapped his finger. A fireball then flew towards the slime and hit it in full.

Suddenly the slime was covered by fire. It loudly screeched in pain as the flames around him engulfed it.

I walked towards it and saw it on the ground deflated.

"W-Wait me am sure we can talk this out!" The slime yelled, I narrowed my eyes and looked at it – it honestly looked quite disgusting. I took a deep breath and sighed. I turned around and saw Helios with his usual vacant expression.

"... No." I said staring at it. I didn't want to waste my energy and Helios seemed to understand that – it slowly floated towards the slime, looming over it as if it was the creature's end.

I took out my scroll and looked at Helios – promptly he stopped mid-attack, about a few inches from hitting Slime on the head.

"Lend me your power." I said, looking at the slime – buffs and debuffs can be very effective during battle, maybe I could use this to my advantage.

If I truly do hold the power of the wild card then I should be able to recruit him into my party no?

"T-then lets talk." said the slime, "Once me understand you, me lend you my power." it said, looking at me with it's red eyes.

A slime may be weak stat-wise – but when I unlock persona fusion it could be useful.

"Me thought you not from around here. You human?" The slime shifted itself a bit backwards – as if afraid of me and Helios – with reason of course.

"I'm here for power." I explained – the slime shifted a little be, shuffling even more backwards and deflating a bit.

"Me knows where you come from people are weak. So that why you come here huh?" the slime asked looking at me.

"Me am frustrated, but me am going to die soon. You are my strongest rival, but also my friend..." It said.

'Friend? When did we become friends?! Is there something I'm missing here?' I questioned, looking at viscid rotten meat looking thing.

"Me want you to give me some nice "words of compassion" – as my rival – as me pass away!" he said, making me knit my eyebrows – truly I think I missed a few things... like when me and this thing became close enough to say we are rivals.

"Rest in peace." I said looking at Helios.

"Me touched by your tender words." He said as Helios slowly disappeared in small blue particles. "Now me remember!" yelled the slime, making me wince and take a step back.

"Me exist in the sea of souls of humans!" He said, inflating again and becoming slightly bigger than before.

"Me am Slime. My power is your power. Use it how you want." He said as he burst into flames. I took a step back and put my hand in-front of my eyes to shield them from the flames – only to see them slowly compress into a glowing blue rectangle.

'If you were to meet other monsters, beings or demons – how about you take out your scroll – after that it should be instinct.' I remembered Igor's words.

I took out my scroll and saw a small entrance in it glow, I extended my hand, getting the scroll closer to the small rectangle – the closer it got, the brighter the small entrance glowed. I took the small object and then placed it inside the scroll.

"... interesting." I though, sighing as I walked around mementos.

_______

I've been in Mementos for quite a while now. I was getting quite tired of being there – all the red was beginning to make me dizzy.

I was pretty far down from what I could tell.

I made a map and followed my steps assuming the position I was facing before was south. I managed to get pretty far according to my map. The persona's here were all around the same level.

I looked at Helios and checked his new stats out. He was definitely much stronger than before – however – he didn't have any new skills. He reached his skill limit already.

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<Stats>

Name: Helios

LvL: 17 (323/2,113)

Arcana: Fool

Weakness: Curse, Wind

Resistant: Ice

Absorbs: Fire

Blocks: None

Reflects: None

Strength: 12

Magic: 14

Endurance: 8

Agility: 12

Luck: 12

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Slime however, managed to gain some new skills. Even though when I got it as a persona it didn't have the debuff it showed earlier – something which bugged me.

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<Stats>

Name: Slime

LvL: 15 (0/1,659)

Arcana: Chariot

Strength: 14

Magic: 7

Endurance: 12

Agility: 8

Luck: 11

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- Lunge (Light physical damage to 1 enemy)

- Evil Touch (High chance of inflicting fear to 1 enemy)

- Eigha (Light Curse damage to 1 enemy)

- Fire Wall (Reduce fire damage and shield fire weakness for 3 minutes)

- Headbutt (Medium physical damage to 1 enemy. Medium chance to cause status "Forget")

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From what I understand in mementos my Persona abilities work like a videogame. So I have skills and powers I can use from inside and power myself up inside mementos.

Outside however these abilities I have will just follow guidelines. I can order Helios and slime to attack however I want outside – but these status effects won't happen outside of mementos – debuffs might work – but status like forget definitely won't unless it's a special skill or maybe poison or something.

Here the amount of power is set and so is the amount of energy that I consume when attacking. Outside when I used agi I could charge it's power and launch it more powerfully – here, Helios won't answer to my order if I tell him to do that.

Meaning that this place acts as a bridge between reality and videogame, making this real but at the same time fake.

I sighed and then turned around, it was about time I got out of here. But first I must go where I came from so that I don't accidentally end up in a random place – after I don't really know how this place works.

"Damn it!" I heard someone yell.

I turned around – curious to who else could talk in Mementos – until you unmask or attack these shadows they won't talk and are unable to talk.

"The concentration of shadows here is immense !" I heard someone yell. I got closer to who it could be and saw an anthropomorphic and biped cat-like creature with a large spheroidal head. His fur was predominantly black, except on his limbs and tail which are white – or were, since they were grey right now from the dirt on the ground

The bottom front half of his face or his mouth was also white. The cat thing wore a mask that covered much of his face, with elliptic eyes consisting of white sclerae, blue irises and black pupils. His outer ears were black with his inner ears being white. He had a yellow scarf around his neck and a utility belt around his hips, with two golden buttons and two bags attached.

"..." I saw him be surrounded by five shadows. All level 15 and bellow... they were all slimes.

"Hey You!" it yelled, pointing at me, "H-help me out!" he said as I slowly walked towards him.

"... Helios." I said feeling my wrist burn up again – I had gotten used to it by now.

"Agi!" I yelled, hitting one of the slimes. Suddenly all of the slimes turned around to look at me. One of them was down and surrounded by fire – but the others started coming towards me.

"Helios!" I yelled as it threw another fireball towards the enemy.

"A-A persona? Without a mask?!" yelled the familiar cat, a slime got dangerously close – so I kicked it, making it fall on it's... back? And then I jumped back creating a distance between them and I.

I didn't exactly have a lot of energy right now.

"Agi!" I yelled again, Helios threw another fireball, hitting yet another slime and making it fall down, "Agi!" I yelled once again – hitting yet another slime.

There were only two more to go, but I didn't have enough energy for Helios to use another fireball. "A little help would be nice." I said, looking at the cat who blinked and nodded.

"Zorro!" yelled the weird cat, making a tall man with a sword appear behind him. The man was wearing all black and had a large moustache which created a perfect 90 degree angle and then turned backwards making them seem more like horns. I couldn't see much of it's face since it was covered with some sort of mask. The persona had comically large hands with a belt with a giant Z shaped buckle.

The persona twirled his sword around, creating small vortexes of wind under the last two slimes and hitting them and making them fall down. It was our chance!

Without enough energy to ask Helios to use fire again, I charged towards the shadows and then kicked the closest one. Helios then descended and punched another one into the ground, the two we punched faded into nothing.

I then turned around and saw one of the slimes slowly recuperating from all the fire, I didn't let it stabilize and kicked it instead, making it also fade.

The cat-thing took out a giant slingshot and then hit the last two with an iron ball?!

"Honestly, I never expected to see another persona user here." the cat thing said, walking towards me.

To be continued

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