Shin Poni Tensei: Persona
Full Moon Night
Canterlot Castle – Main Hall
It was quite the busy night at Canterlot, the capital of Equestria, all the ponies in the city and castle were celebrating a meteor shower that only occurred once every 50 years, and they were doing it with a massive festival in the streets and a fancy masquerade ball at Princess Celestia’s castle. Among the guests of this party were Twilight Sparkle, a book-loving purple unicorn and Celestia’s faithful student, Rainbow Dash, a sporty pegasus mare, Rarity, a fashionista unicorn from Ponyville, and many others.
At the main hall of the castle, there were ponies dancing together, eating, drinking, and generally enjoying themselves, all with their own unique masks on their faces, some animal-themed and others just generic and colorful. At the table with all the food and drinks, Twilight Sparkle met up with some of her friends to have a nice conversation.
“Hi girls! How’re you all doing? Enjoying the masquerade ball?” Twilight asked.
“Yep, I didn’ use to think these fancy mask parties were a big thing, but now that ah’m in one, I changed my mind,” Said a freckled orange mare with a red and green mask.
“Thanks for the input Applejack, you know it was my idea for this year’s festival, right?” Twilight replied, but got a response from a different pony, as Applejack had moved away for a moment.
“Yeah, it was a pretty good idea,” Rainbow Dash said, adjusting her colorful and pointy mask, “Then again, I’m not the party expert here, that pony’s at the other side of the hall,” She joked, pointing at a pink mare with a curly mane who was enjoying the sweets at another food table.
“Hey, Twilight!” ‘Shouted’ a yellow mare with a straight pink mane as she approached Twilight, donning a butterfly-shaped mask.
“Oh, hi Fluttershy!” Twilight greeted her friend back, waving at her for a second.
“Umm, would there be a problem if I left the castle for a moment? Angel and the others aren’t liking this music that much, so I wanted to take them out,” Fluttershy asked.
“Absolutely no problem, so long as you can be back in time for Celestia’s speech she’s gonna do later into the night,” Twilight responded.
“Alright, see you two later,” Fluttershy said as she trotted out towards the castle’s front gates.
Later, at midnight…
After a long night of partying and chatting, Celestia herself appeared at the top of the staircase in the main hall, followed by two royal guards as the music slowly stopped and she made her speech, everyone that could fit in the main hall was there to hear it, and anyone who couldn’t, stopped what they were doing anyways.
“Citizens of Equestria,” Celestia began, “It is with great pleasure that we commemorate yet another half-century in our proud history,” She said, causing the entire crowd to burst out with cheers and yelling, which she peacefully silenced, “These past 50 years weren’t exactly smooth sailing, but we made it through, for ourselves and for those who couldn’t make it,” The princess continued, “So, I am glad to say, to 50 more years of Equestrian history!” She finished, the ponies below roared in excitement as the princess and her royal guards bowed down and made their way back to the castle’s living quarters, while everyone else went back to their average party.
“That was it?” Said a pink mare with a red and black mask on her face.
“Pinkie, this sort of celebration is really important, be a bit considerate of the princess’ speech,” Rarity replied, “Even if it was lackluster at best…” She quietly added.
“Welp, I think I’ll get goin’, I have plenty of work to do in the mornin’ and a few hours of sleep in better than not sleepin’ at all, bye y’all,” Applejack said, she made her way to the castle’s gates, but they quickly and loudly closed before she or anyone else who wanted to go out early could exit the premises, “What the…?!” The farm pony shouted in confusion.
In the quiet halls, everyone heard slow footsteps from the staircases, they turned towards the sound and found Princess Luna slowly walking down the steps and looking towards the crowd, which looked back at her in shock and surprise.
“Why is everypony like this?” Pinkie whispered in Twilight’s ear.
“Luna has been ill for a while now, usually, she does the speech too, but she couldn’t even do that,” Twilight whispered back, “So, seeing her up and about like this is kind of a big thing,” She finished.
The crowd began to cheer, thinking that Luna had gotten better, but they were all quickly silenced by a very loud ‘SILENCE’ shouted by Luna herself.
“I currently do not care about your parties, and I’m especially not here to join you all,” Luna began, “Who even cares about these pitiful festivities, 50 years? Meteor shower? I’ve had enough with all this foolish behavior!” She yelled, The crowd went from happy to very confused in a matter of seconds.
“Why is she saying this? This is so unlike Luna to just insult this sort of celebration,” Celestia whispered to one of her royal guards as they watched this scene unfold. Luna tilted her head up, almost reluctantly and opened her eyes, revealing that they were actually a piercing gold, as opposed to the usual dark blue. As the princess stared down at the horrified ponies, she also flashed them a wide grin as she flew up into the air, flapping her wings and creating a dark storm inside of the castle’s walls.
“We have to get outta here!!!” Screamed several different ponies as they rushed to the exit, their visions blocked out by the dark winds Luna created, a few ponies were struck by lighting from the black clouds in the main hall, Twilight and her friends included. The walls of the castle began to become corrupted and rock-like, Celestia rushed down in an attempt to save Twilight and the others, but she was struck by lightning as well, falling unconscious on the floor.
Hours later…
“Princess!” Twilight called out, nudging Celestia’s unconscious body, the princess quickly awoke and got on her hooves.
“Luna… What happened?” Celestia asked herself.
“I don’t know either,” Fluttershy said.
“Was that even Luna?” Rainbow Dash added to the question.
“Well, this party was certainly crashed, and by somepony who was all for it the past times,” Pinkie remarked, “I think so, I wasn’t there…” She said.
“Yes, Luna advocated this 50 year celebration every other time it happened, but why did she just destroy everything like that? I’m not sure that truly was my sister…” Celestia said, slowly trotting towards the exit to the castle.
“I mean, that is exactly what I asked an-” Rainbow was silenced by Twilight with a hoof to the pegasus’ mouth and an angry grunt, “Oh, sorry,” Rainbow said. All the mares followed Celestia to the exit, but as they opened the gates, everything was off.
Author's Note
Hello pointless cliff hanger, my old friend... I've come to talk with you again...
Anyways, I hope you're enjoying this story so far (Probably not, but I can still hope), if you are, expect the next chapter soon, and if you've played through Persona 1 before, I hope you can still enjoy it despite knowing the plot twists that will happen and what not.
Daytime
Canterlot Castle? – Entrance
“What happened to the city?!” Celestia asked, looking over the corrupted Canterlot City in front of her, there was another, smaller castle in the corner of the city, an amusement park, a forest and three large obelisks coming out of the ground in certain spots of the city.
“Well, maybe let’s go to that other castle,” Rarity suggested, “Try to, that is,” She corrected herself. As the seven mares stepped onto the cobblestone streets, a dark goop seeped out from in between the stones, forming into a pair of stuffed animal-like creatures with jagged mouths and button eyes.
“What the hay is goin’ on?!” Applejack asked, staggering back at the sight of these monsters. Celestia tried to destroy them with a beam of light from her horn, Twilight even tried helping, but the monster was taking minimal damage.
“I can just barely see with this mask, maybe I’d be casting something stronger if I took it off,” Twilight thought aloud, she tried to remove her mask and found to be seemingly stuck to her face, she tried pulling it with more force, eventually tearing it off, causing her immense pain, the mask became a purple flame that formed beside Twilight as a white mare with a long yellow mane, red robes, a book and a long trumpet. All the mares stared in shock as Twilight commanded this being as if instinctively.
“Clio, Kouha!” Twilight shouted, the mare beside her blew a white wisp out of her instrument, which hit one of the demons and caused it to explode into light. Rainbow Dash suddenly became bothered by her mask and tore it off as well, creating an armored griffon with odd patterns around its blank eyes.
“Shu, use Garu!” Rainbow ordered, the griffon blasted the other demon with wind from its wings, but it wasn’t enough to bring it down, Celestia attempted to take off her mask, she, much like the other two, ripped it right off, which created a long dragon with a sun pattern along its skin.
“Zhulong, incinerate him,” Celestia menacingly said before the dragon made the other plush beast catch fire, turning it into ashes. The other four mares stared, not knowing it they should be shocked, happy or feeling whatever else they had in mind after the battle that just unfolded. Celestia, Rainbow and Twilight passed out on the streets, leaving their friends very worried.
???
Twilight, Rainbow and Celestia awoke in a golden altar, seemingly floating in nothingness, at the center of this altar was a glowing light in the shape of a pony, it had pitch black eyes and butterfly-like wings and it stood on one of its hind legs.
“Ah, so you are here,” the glowing being began, it lost its glow, revealing itself to be a tall white pony with large butterfly wings, a dark, long flowing mane and a mask that completely hid their face, “Allow me to introduce myself, I am Philemon, mother of all ponykind, and who may all of you be?” They asked.
“Umm, I’m Rainbow Dash, the purple one is Twilight Sparkle and the tall one is Celestia,” Rainbow quickly introduced the three of them.
“I see, very well, you must be wondering why you are all here, what was it that happened in your world, or, what seems to be your world,” Philemon said, “When the other princess destroyed everything, that was not her, it was her true self which she does not accept, her Shadow,” They explained.
“Well, that doesn’t explain everything, please tell us more,” Celestia insisted.
“I brought you here as you must know about the power you used in that fight, the power of Persona,” Philemon said, “This is the power to control the masks one wears in everyday life, the personalities one holds within themselves,” They continued, “I granted it to you all when you were unconscious after that incident, all it will take for your friends to awaken is for them to see a need in assuming who they truly are and removing the mask, showing their real self to the world,” Philemon finished.
“Okay, what about this creepy world? You said it only seemed to be our own,” Twilight said.
“I hold infinite knowledge, but certain pieces of it must be held off for the time being, I apologize, Ms. Sparkle” Philemon responded, looking away from Twilight, “Anyways, you must now go back to the other world, we shall meet again, goodbye,” They said as the three mares returned to the ‘real’ world.
Daytime
Canterlot Market
Celestia, Rainbow and Twilight woke back up and they were in a completely different place, along with Pinkie, Fluttershy, Rarity and Applejack, who were looking over them, they could hear a crowd around them as they got up from the ground.
“Oh yay! You’re all back up now!” Pinkie celebrated her friends waking up, “I mean, it’s good that you’re fine, your highness,” Pinkie changed her tone slightly to refer to the princess.
“No, it’s fine Pinkie, in this situation, I’m not grander or more important than anyone around here,” Celestia said, walking around the odd location for a moment, “Just another lost and confused pony who wants to fix whatever is going on,” She added.
“Well, okay then,” Pinkie said, “So, aren’t you gonna ask something, like, ‘Where are we, this is like the market place, but different’?” She said.
“Yeah, where are we, this is like the market place but-” Rainbow stopped herself as she noticed she was asking the exact thing Pinkie said they would.
“Well, yeah, this is the market place but different, now it’s a fancy mall that looks like a castle,” The pink mare explained, jumping around in excitement.
“We were followed by some of those creatures, but, for whatever reason, they can’t come into this market, mall, castle… Whatever it is,” Rarity said, “By the way, what happened back there and when you passed out?”
“Yeah, did you have some cool dream or something?” Pinkie asked.
“Yes, actually, we wer-” Celestia was interrupted by Rainbow Dash, who explained their dream first.
“We were in this altar place with a butterfly pony dude and he told us about something involving masks and Personas and how this isn’t the real world, but he didn’t say how it isn’t the real world, he just kinda said ‘I have a bunch of knowledge, but I won’t tell you everything’ and now we woke up,” Rainbow said.
“Well, that’s mighty interestin’ but a way out of freaky town would’ve been better than some crud about masks, couldn’ you have asked him about that?” Applejack asked with an impatient tone.
“Well, she did say that this butterfly pony couldn’t tell them everything,” Fluttershy replied.
“So what? Maybe the way out of this place isn’ part of the everythin’ he needs to keep to himself!” Applejack shouted, causing Fluttershy to cower back in fear.
“No, stop fighting!” Celestia stopped Applejack before anything got serious.
“I’m sorry, sugar cube, I didn’ mean to scare ya,” Applejack was immediately apologetic, “It’s just that… What if there is no way out?” She asked herself.
“No, don’t say that, I’m sure we’ll get out of this world,” Twilight tried to encourage her friend.
“How sure can you be? You haven’ been here before, none of us has, maybe we’re stuck here for good,” Applejack said, Rainbow Dash grabbed Applejack by the face and spoke to her.
“We will get out of here, stop being a worrying W… Wendy?” Rainbow said.
“Well, fine, I’m countin’ on y’all, if we can’t get out, it’s everyone’s problem, for a bunch of reasons,” Applejack said, regaining her confidence.
“So, where do we begin? What to do first on our quest to escape from this place?” Twilight asked.
“I know nothing about this place, so, don’t expect an answer from me,” Celestia chuckled, “Maybe we should equip ourselves before going out there,” She said, heading into the mall to find any useful stores, she was soon followed by the other 6 mares, and they went to look for clothes and weapons.
Author's Note
Second chapter, things get interesting, or maybe not.
If you're wondering about the Persona theme, there is none, I just picked mythological figures that had something in common with their user in this story, Zhulong is a sun deity/dragon, Shu is the Egyptian god of wind, which has something to do with RD... I suppose, and Clio is the muse of writing and poetry or something, as of the moment of writing this, I can't be asked to go to Wikipedia and check, sorry.
As the story description hinted (Read: "blatantly said") Philemon is here, doing much of the same that he did in the original game, serving as the guide for the protagonists.
I apologize if Applejack was a bit off-character in the one scene, I'll admit it, I haven't seen the actual show in a while, so I'm going off of whatever I remember, which goes up to Season 4, so... Yeah.
