Shattered Justice (A Persona Quest)

You don't know a lot about the green time. You're content with not knowing a lot about the green time, have been ever since you first woke up in it, a scared eight-year-old with no idea of what to do but hide under the covers and hope for the best.

That's worked out for you pretty well so far, but now that the monsters seem to have taken an interest in you... it's probably not going to hold true for that much longer. And while you managed to defend yourself before you have no idea just how long that will last.

So you climb out of bed, and look for a good target for your spells. You don't see one.

In your infinite little-kid type wisdom, you decide that, in the absence of a readily available target, you'll just have to make one! So you go downstairs and grab a paper plate, drawing an angry face on it in marker of some random color you can't really see at night when the lights are out. Given that you saw another kid drawing with them earlier, probably dark blue or purple.

It doesn't really matter. An enemy's an enemy, and all that.
It's not even an enemy, it's a homemade Shadow mask!
Taking your handmade monster mask upstairs, you arrange it on a pillow propped up against the back of your chair. Perfect.

Now, you need to figure out just what you want to try to do to your make-believe villain. You could try calling the cards again, but the last time you did that, you ended up really tired, so maybe you should try something else.

Not one minute after you think that, you find your body moving into a specific position, and you can feel static in the air around you.
Zio.
Without thinking, you reach forward, and a small bolt of lightning leaps from your hand, scorching part of the pillow but leaving the chair and mask intact. It's tiring, but not quite as bad as those cards. But you wonder if there's anything you can do that doesn't tire you in that way.
Well, you could try this...
You walk up to the chair, and shove it over. You don't know why, it just feels right. And it gives you another idea as to what you can do.
Cruel Attack.
You lash out again, and this time, there's an odd power behind it. The force hits the chair, and it explodes, sending fragments everywhere. A number of the fragments even graze your skin. You're going to have a hard time explaining that in the morning. But the cuts don't really worry you, as you can feel the magic welling up inside, and even have some idea how to direct it.
Dia.
A white light, in contrast to the gold of your first spell, washes over you, removing your injuries in a sweep of warmth. It's nice. Comforting.

It also comes with a new wave of fatigue, but you'd sort of expected that. It seems like magic tires you out rather quickly, while that physical force just subjects you to the usual aches and pains of exercise.

You'll have to figure that out later, though. As it is, while you're less tired than you were that night you first used your powers, you still don't think you have the energy to do anything else. So you climb back into bed, missing your pillow but not feeling motivated enough to try and drag the chair pieces out of it.

Not that it really matters. You're asleep by the time the world turns back to normal either way.

---

You wake up on the morning of Friday, December twenty-first, with an important dilemma. More specifically: What do you do about the broken chair?

You're probably going to get into trouble either way, you know that much, but maybe there's a way to make things easier on yourself.


[ ] Pretend you don't know about anything that happened. It's not like the cameras record in the green time, right?

[ ] Say you were just messing around. It's pretty close to the truth, after all.

[ ] Come clean and say that it was a casualty of spell practice.
-[ ] Hope they take you at your word.
-[ ] Demonstrate using one of your powers.
--[ ] Which one?

[ ] Dodge the question. Refuse to answer. They don't need to know anything.

You're not entirely sure how to explain this. A chair, exploded, with fragments scattered around the room. A paper plate, drawn on in marker, that is crumpled and torn in ways that plates really shouldn't be. And a pillow, with a scorch mark, filled with fragments of said chair.

It looks like something out of a movie, where someone is told to look after the house, and when the owners come back, everything is destroyed. And, generally, the owners at least ask for an explanation, though you don't think 'I was trying to use magic and it went a bit too well' is going to fly with the dorm mother.

Really, you almost don't believe it yourself, and you lived it! But you'd feel bad about lying, so you decide to go with something that's sort-of true but also kinda not, in the sense that it says more or less what happened while leaving out some of the parts you aren't sure how you can explain.

"I-I'm sorry," You stammer out, because you really are sorry- you'd liked that pillow, and the chair had served you well during your time here. "It was an accident. I was playing around, and- and dressed it up to look like an enemy. I- I guess I'm stronger than I thought..." The dorm mother looks unconvinced, particularly regarding the scorch mark, but she doesn't accuse you of lying or anything.

However, outside of school, you are confined to the dorm for the next three days, with no television privileges, and you lose access to the markers indefinitely. You suppose there are worse punishments, but that's still three days with practically nothing to do, and it'd probably be harsher if they weren't so perplexed by how things could have gotten this way. Also, you still don't have a new chair or pillow- they weren't expecting to need them, and apparently most of the year's furniture budget was used on replacing everything with something non-contaminated after an incident that was only described as a crime against sustenance.

You decide not to ask about that. Something tells you that you don't want to know.

---

Apparently, the adults don't trust you not to run off anymore. They actually get some of the other kids to escort you to school, and you imagine the same thing will happen later today, when it's time to go back.

Not that they should have trusted you- or anyone, really- not to wander off in the first place. But it's different for kids under punishment, apparently. Not that you'd know. You've never gotten into trouble while living at the dorm before, and you don't really care for talking to the other kids.

But you now need to actually think of what you'll do while under punishment, because you've just had a lot of options taken from you. Through the weekend, even. At least you still have some choices...


[ ] Keep your head down, and focus on studying. That should satisfy the adults, and it's something you should be doing anyway.

[ ] Check out a book from the school library. It won't keep you occupied the whole time, but it could give you ideas of things to do in future.
-[ ] Some sort of manga.
-[ ] A study guide.
-[ ] A fantasy novel.

[ ] Actually interact with the other kids in the dorm... if they can pull themselves away from the television.