[center][h3]Barney Rynsburger[/h3]
[@SilverPaw][/center]

As much as Barney wanted to plonk himself down, nice new clothes be damned, and refuse to move until this Spindle chick answered at least a few of the countless questions buzzing in his mind, that conversation could wait. He would have honestly expected by now that he’d been too exhausted and brain-fried by all this baffling overstimulation to walk another step, but whatever just happened left him feeling pretty good, all things considered. It was like a weight had been taken off his shoulders, the sort of burden that piled up so slowly over time that he never noticed how heavy it had grown until it was gone. As long as he had gas in his tank, he could keep on trucking.

Before they proceeded, though, Spindle addressed Caelum’s very reasonable concern. Halo effect or not, Barney had gained a lot of respect for the younger man, and was a little worried about how he’d fare without this power too. Spindle, however, was nothing if not cheerful. Being a few inches taller than him, she gave a sympathetic smile and clapped her hand on his shoulder with the air of a big sister. “Hey, chin up! Ya already done a mighty fine job, even without a Persona. Chances are you’ll get yours purty soon, but until then you’re fine t’hang back an’ let us do the heavy liftin’. Jus’ make sure you don’t lollygag behind, now!”

He gave the police girl a nod, and together he, Caelum, and Spindle jogged over to the cathedral doors, their footsteps the only disturbance in the calm silence that had overtaken the place. Barney set down his wheel to apply his strength, and working together the three pushed the doors open and stepped out into the smoky dusk of the war-torn world. Going back out into the Prison didn’t delight Barney by any means, but after the change that had overtaken him, he felt much less fearful about it than before. He still planned to avoid the beacon he saw roving over the Proving Grounds, but it no longer struck him as the beam of certain doom it did before, and his days of cowering from the guards were over. After all, he’d overcome that repulsive creature -with some serious help, of course- and somehow turned its strength into his own. It was empowering, and with power came courage--the determination to do others the good turn that had been done for him.

After taking a deep breath, Barney reached down to grab his weapon. When he did, however, he found that it had disappeared. “Hey, my wheel’s gone!”

The news did not seem to take Spindle by surprise. She was in the process of pulling out a few ephemeral strings from Odradek, making them into loops. “Uh huh, that’s normal. Same with my needle, see?” With a flourish and a subtle flash her own weapon appeared in her hand, and when she let it go it vanished, like a flicker in one’s peripheral vision. Then she handed the loops of thread to Barney and Caelum. “Here, put these doohickies on your ears,” she told them. “Odradek’s power is connectin’ things no matter the distance between ‘em, so with these we can chitchat even when I’m flyin’ high up.”

“Oh, cool,” Barney said, pretty nonplussed by such a claim at this point. He accepted the loop, noting both its softness and its strength, like spider silk. The thread trailing off it towards Odradek seemed to disappear, and when he poked at it he could barely feel the ghostly line. “So, where do we need to go?”

Spindle took hold of her Persona and climbed on, ready to fly. “Last I saw was three guys hoofin’ it over yonder.” She pointed toward the entertainment center a few jailhouses away as she started floating upward. “That thing’s someone’s Shadow’s Territory, sure as sugar. Y’all oughta hustle.” 

As the beacon swept closer she shot up into the sky, quickly reaching an altitude where she could look over the whole prison without having to worry about being spotted. Barney and Caelum waited out the spotlight in cover before getting a move on. The Proving Grounds’ perimeter road, which divided them from the arc of jailhouses, provided a quick means of navigating the mazelike array of pens and prison lines, but it wasn’t without its issues. After just a few moments of running the young men ran into a guard. The sentry stood at the entrance to the jailhouse north of the one with the cathedral, and even without a face managed to seem surprised at the two intruders running free. “What? Hey!”

Still angry about the guards from earlier, and now in a position to do something about it, Barney decided to put Spindle’s word to the test. He reached out and grabbed at an imaginary wheel as if to heft it behind his shoulder, and just like that his weapon appeared from nowhere. Suddenly exhilarated by the magical feat, Barney nearly laughed aloud, but instead he put his energy into an all-out swing. With a strength he didn’t know he had, he bashed the guard with his wheel before it could so much as bring its baton up to defend itself, toppling it backward over the brick sidewall of the jailhouse stairs. At that point Barney couldn’t help but laugh, and after letting go of the wheel again he continued onward without missing a beat. A moment after he and Caelum passed, the fallen guard blasted a geyser of darkness from its face-hole to call forth a demon, but by the time the Buer appeared the intruders were already gone.

Before he knew it, Barney stood in front of the music hall. He prepared to charge inside, but stopped in his tracks when he nearly plowed straight into a few guys coming the other way. It was Dakota, Vincent, and Nick, all looking a little worse for wear, but Dakota in particular looking altogether different from how Barney remembered him. A new, striking outfit, a comparably confident bearing...had he overcome this Shadow, too? “Thank God you’re all alright,” he breathed, lifting his new hat a touch to wipe sweat from his brow.

“They made it? Heck yeah!” came the voice of the police girl through his new accessory. “I can see ‘em now. Looks like that dude got his Persona too! Sa-weeeet!” Spindle’s cheer came loud enough that the other guys could hear her, too. “That’s real good, y’all. The more ya got, the better chance ya have of makin’ it outta here.”

At that point, with the others’ safety confirmed, Barney couldn’t help but give voice to the general confusion. “That’s great and all, but what [i]are[/i] they, Miss Spindle? What is this place?” he said, making sure to drop her name for the sake of the newbies. “We’re totally in the dark here!”

“Yeah, I know, hmm…” She spent a moment thinking, trying to come up with a quick but decent explanation. “Well, they’re like your gumption. Or your fightin’ spirit, yeah! Ya see, this here world’s made from everyone’s cognition. It ain’t the real world, but...uh, think of it like your shadow. It’s not you, but its there anyhow, and even though its based off you, it can get all weird an’ messed up dependin’ on the other stuff...around it?” Spindle cleared her throat nervously, knowing her explanation was less than ideal. “But uh, the bottom line is, your Persona is a part of you. The strong part that can face down anythin’ in your way.”

Over the line there came the sound of a slight gasp. “Aw hell, I got all distracted tryin’ to explain things. Ya got bozos incomin’. A whole bunch.” Suddenly tense, Barney wheeled around to survey his surroundings, and sure enough he could see guards coming from three directions. “Listen up y’all, your trusty navigator’s gonna getcha through this. Our goal’s the prison entrance, way up on the north side. I need both ya guys with Personas to hold them guards off. The rest of ya need to skedaddle down the alley by the music hall and take a left onto the basketball court. It’s fenced in, but y’all can slide some dumpsters up against ‘em to climb over. Keep an eye out for the inmates though, they might play rough. C’mon, hop to it, folks!”

Barney took another deep breath and pulled out his wheel. Even though he and Dakota were still pretty much clueless, it looked like they’d be put through a trial by fire. “Listen to Spindle and go ahead, guys!” he told the others, gearing up to fight. “We’ll be right behind you!”