This was a hell of a nest.
Most Shadows didn’t give him the time of day. These guys would give his coroner the time of death right down to the millisecond. Joker wasn’t unaccustomed to hordes, but he had to admit he was at a disadvantage this time. He was out in the open, which was exactly his least favorite place to be, and in no position to play tricks or to even bargain.
He scanned the oncoming circle of foes and spotted a break. Here’s my chance, he thought. Joker tore off his mask with one hand and fired a bullet with the other, felling the Shadow that would open the way. His mask melted into flame and reshaped into Arsene, who followed up the line of fire with a flying cleave. Would-be opposers fell on either side, blasted by the flap of Arsene’s wings, while one fell flat on its back. Joker sprinted after his Persona, and the circle of Shadows broke formation, streaming after their intrepid intruder.
There were some things he could scale, he thought. If he turned a corner and scaled a building or tree, he might be able to lose them. If he was lucky he could exit the cognitive world in a place no one would see him.
Joker picked up the pace and made distance. He wasn’t a track star like Ryuji, but he’d spent his fair share of time on the treadmill. The distance would buy him time to make a sharp turn, skid around this corner, and then…
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Face-first into his target. Or chest-first, rather, since his target was a dog.
It was a very big dog, which didn’t look that much like a dog at all. It was white all over and sported a lion’s mane around its neck, and it had the tail of a…well, he wasn’t sure, but it was weird. Certain experts of the collective unconscious referred to the beast as Cerberus, which he inherently disagreed with on account of its single head, but who was he to argue with the collective unconscious?
In the blink of an eye, the beast flattened him. Teeth clamped down on his shoulder. Joker grabbed at the face of the beast while Arsene wound his arms around Cerberus and pulled. Joker put a knife in the beast’s eye, forcing it to let go. The hound thrashed in the gentleman-burglar’s grip as Joker recovered his feet, and they all saw that the horde was once again closing in.
Lost my chance, Joker thought. As if hearing him, Arsene tossed his head down the way they had tried to disappear. Joker took to his heels and looked again for some kind of escape, even if it would only be a temporary reprieve from the chase. When he reached his next branching path, he reeled from sudden bouts of pain. Wounds showed along his arms and torso. No doubt his cognitive extension was under attack. He pressed a hand to his forehead and mentally clutched at his other self. Come on back, Arsene.
His mask reformed on his face, and he turned. Cerberus was barreling down the way, headed straight for him.
There’s no outrunning a Cerberus. Joker clutched his phone and looked around. He was in an obscure enough spot. It was dark out, it didn’t look like there were streetlamps here… Maybe if he went back, no one would see him… If he was really lucky, no one would be there to see him.
He pressed the Emergency Exit button on his app. The world folded in on him, pulled him in one direction, then another. He was dizzy. Adrenaline, blood loss, his brain’s attempt to consolidate the shifting of dimensions, it was a normal reaction to have.
Then the clean night air of the human world hit him, and he gasped. Joker hit the floor–first the car next to him, and then the floor–and he went still. He listened to the sound of his own heartbeat for a moment. Still alive, he concluded. His eyes searched the area. No one there.
Someone was there. Right beside him.
Joker froze. Did they see him? It was dark out, but at this proximity… And someone had their light on nearby… He likely made enough noise, too, to just attract attention…
Okay, fabricate. Why did I fall here? I was feeling woozy. I’m hurt because I got in a fight.
Oh, wait. He was dressed like a phantom thief.
Maybe they’ll think I was cosplaying. Damn. Attempted burglary? No wait. Maybe not.
And so there Joker was, clutching his bleeding shoulder, trying to come up with a story so that this stranger would maybe not call the police on him.
Well, that’s something Hiro didn’t come across every day. Or ever before.
Hiro had just been on the way home from the convenience store after buying popsicles and fake eyeglasses. Popsicles because they were delicious; eyeglasses because college orientation was soon and who didn’t sometimes worry about changing their look? Hiro felt strongly enough about that last part to wear the glasses home.
Regardless, he was close enough to see the sudden red ripple of reality bloom right before his eyes. Soon after, something, no, someone stumbled through it, slamming into the car on the street before falling heavily onto the ground. Hiro knew he wasn’t mistaken. After all that had happened to him, he no longer questioned whether or not he had really seen something. He had used the Terminals to cross from one physical plane to another! He had been to the Akashic Stratum itself! He had floated with his friends in a cascading whirlpool of blazing white stars and swirling darkness at the end of it all! Who was he to disbelieve the apparent… transition of one who could pass from one place in the world to another when the evidence was right in front of him?
He wasn’t entirely certain what kind of transition it was, or what the phenomenon truly was, but one minute nothing was there and the next, after red, rippling waves in the middle of the air, someone was. Admittedly, this person, whoever they were, had probably seen better days since they hadn’t gotten up since falling on the ground…
Because caution was for losers or for people who didn’t wear white rabbit-eared hoodies, Hiro rushed over, drawing out his cell phone.
It didn’t take much more than a look to be able to tell that the stranger was terribly injured, although Hiro did take a second look because the young man looked so much like himself. He couldn’t take too much time to register that, however, because Hiro could see blood seeping through the gray fabric of the other’s shirt under the shoulder. Even if he couldn’t see blood trickling down the shirt, it was obvious from the stranger’s behavior that he was in serious condition. He was severely pale, and although he had clearly become aware of Hiro’s presence, freezing when he noticed him, Hiro wasn’t so certain he was entirely aware of the rest of his surroundings. Or that he could be budged, for that matter.
Hiro knew some amount of first aid. Splints, CPR, apply pressure to the wound… but the dire look the young man was giving him made him think he’d be unwilling to let Hiro help or even call for help. Additionally, Hiro didn’t know anything about him, where he had come from, why he was injured or if he was a danger. Possibly, he was someone who could… invoke that phenomena just now, and appear or disappear anywhere. He could be seriously dangerous.
Curiously, without taking a further second, the teenager hastily looked around, over his shoulder and down the street, like he was checking for something. Was he looking for other passer-by to help? Police? He looked at the stranger’s face again, searching for something, as if he had to be absolutely certain about something. It seemed as though he quickly came to some sort of conclusion because shortly after that he gave a very soft sigh and then nodded to himself.
“Okay, okay,” he said gently, with deliberate assurance, as if in response to some unvoiced thought or an imagined inquiry from the fallen young man. “But you can’t tell anyone about this either.”
Hiro pulled out his phone…! Ah, so he was going to call the police after a—
…He summoned Tzitzimitl, goddess of the night, goddess of fear, from his demon roster. Certainly not the friendliest-looking demon. Her eyeless face peered down at the stranger as if in judgement. Under her skirts her body glimmered with stardust, her many appendages slowly unfolded themselves from each other in a menacing, artful spiral in wait of Hiro’s command...
Hiro didn’t waste time. He asked of her to cast only one spell on the stranger before him.
When that was done, Hiro assessed the young man one last time, perhaps to gauge his reaction to being able to summon a demon right there in front of him. Whatever he was looking for in the stranger’s expression, he kept to himself. His own expression appeared to be one of cautious anticipation. However, it wasn’t long before he was glancing surreptitiously about the street once again. He paused only to take the time to thank Tzitzimitl before he then quickly dismissed her.
Only then did Hiro offer his hand to the stranger to help him up. He smiled.
“Rough costume party, huh?”
In the end, Hiro couldn’t help but feel sympathy for a stranger, who had an obvious link to something supernatural, and whose face looked like one who found it an impossibility to admit the truth of his circumstances. Like how Hiro felt sometimes.
A terrible risk. Foolhardy. But Hiro wasn’t someone who could leave another with injuries like this to struggle alone in the dark.
