Persona! The truth behind a smile

A simple card game

Brock was in a dress now, she felt odd but, somehow, at home, she hadn't worn one in almost a year now...not since she had met paige
"So the game is simple" Sharmin said pulling out a deck of cards and a card board
"These cards are your monsters, they have types, weaknesses, things that don't hurt them, and things that get shot back at the person who hits them, they all have attacks with certain types..." she went on to explain the game more, but Brock simply looked at her
Is she a shadow?
Could she have been taken?
"There are tons of different cards in the game" she pulled out a card, it was a familiar demon with large devil-like horns and a pointed tail
"This one is called barerin" Brock knew she'd seen it before...her persona was a part of this game?
But it was different to how he looked
"This one is called-" Brock cut her off
"Jack O' lantern" Sharmin looked at the card confused
"Actually it's called Pyro jack...nice try though" she smiled a little bit
She went through almost all the cards but five
"This one is triorna" she said, she held the persona, an exact replica, a black tiger with red stripes and silver glowing eyes
"This is Jiara" She held Paige's persona in her hand
"An, my personal favourite, Estuan." She held a tall and divine looking lady, holding a burning heart in it's hand, wearing a long black dress with golden, vine-like patterns on it.
"And the last two are spll cards, Shadow and 'the wildcard', the wildcard is the strongest card in the game, as when you lose a demon you're only meant to swap out then, but with the continuous spell....you can change your demons at will" Sharmin explained
"Demons?" Brock questioned "is that what they're called?"
"Yes the very same. They were inspired by the game, uuh what's it called, 'master persona incantation' where they summon demons to tell you your future...or something." She stated willingly
"Now are we all good to play?" She asked, Brock's heart fluttered as she smiled
"Ah! Wait! The last card, is called a 'shadow' they're evil incarnations of demons and can be used to immobilize one, it stays active until the demon dies, but only works if the demon is the active one, it is returned to the users hand once the target has died. Essentially it takes 100 health from the demon a turn."
She put the deck to the side of the board and told Brock to draw five cards
"Rules are simple, you can use eight demons at most, for this game anyway, competitive people use around 12, the first person to lose all 8 demons they use, loses."
They each drew 5 cards, Brock got 3 'demons' as Sharmin called them, Jack frost, Jiara, and bicorn, Brock placed bicorn down as his first card, she however played Pyro jack

The game went on like this for a little while, beforehand they had put makeup on Brock, much to her distaste, but afterwards she felt somewhat happy, they were nearing the end of the game, Brock was onto her 8th demon, succubus, and had barerin in her hand, Sharmin then played the card...shadow, succubus was losing health fast, 300, 200, 100, on that draw she got it, the all-powerful card, The wildcard, she played it and swapped out succubus for Barerin, it didn't change the end result with Brock losing, but when she heard the front door click and looked down at the dress she was wearing she panicked
"Wh-who's that?" She asked
"Probably mum-" Sharmin was cut off from her mother walking in
"Ah, and who is this Sharmin? I thought I said one friend here while I was gone" She asked
"Well- you see....this is still-" Brock cut Sharmin off
"It's still me ma'am" Brock's cheeks were red and her voice cracked as she said it, Sharmin's mother looked curiously at her, and Brock's face only reddened as she stared
"So you're a?"
Brock shook her head
"No, I pose as a boy to....keep away from a....very dislikeable past" she continued
"A very dislikea-" she was cut off by Sharmin
"mamá! no presiones ella! ella nos dirá en su propio tiempo"
"I mean...thanks for the pronouns but-" Brock tried to speak
"Wait you understood that?"
"Nope only that ella means her in spanish, or like it's kinda like french where you use ella is the female pronoun...so...." Brock was looking at them blushing slightly
"Okay I lied I tried to study some spanish...but that's all I know. I swear!" She was bright red now
Mhm...Sharmin moved in slightly
"You okay?" She was leaning over her now
"F-fine, i'm fine" she avoided eye contact
"Oh! What time is it?" Brock asked
She looked at her watch, it showed 2:30 pm
"I'm fine to stay for a bit longer" she smiled at Sharmin
"So what happened while I was gone anyway?" Sharmin's mother asked them
Brock only chuckled uncomfortably, but then there was a knock at the door
"Hm?" Sharmin's mother walked to the door, a few seconds passed and a simple thud was heard Brock turned her head and saw a black, metallic ball roll into the room, as she stood up, a cold, white mist sprayed out from it, a shape emerging in the center, Brock's vision clouded...until her watch glowed a bright white light and she was wearing her mask, it had glass over the eyes now though
"What the hell..." she touched the glass and saw Sharmin pass out next to her
"Shar-!" She stopped as the shape got clearer, a boy in light grey, that went to white near his pants, he wore a masquerade mask with lines heading up, almost resembling strings, he picked up Sharmin, looked at Brock, kicked her in the face and walked away, Brock sent a single letter to Paige, they'd set it up years before but never expected to use it, 'T', she ran after the figure, knowing Paige would know where to go

Paige felt the buzz of her phone in her pocket, she turned her head to look at Tamika, opened her phone and saw it 'T' panic struck her and she stood up
"I'll be back, don't destroy the house, and don't go into my room." She ran out and opened a tracking app that showed Brock's location, he wasn't far away, but whatever it was that was happening he was taking back alleys  and heading towards the one that went to that world, she started a run to cut it off, whatever it was ,there.

Brock chased the boy, they rounded a corner and she realised they were nearing the back alley that lead to that 'world'
"Damn." She ran faster after him, the boy stopped, turned around, saw Brock, and smile, jumping backwards into the portal, with a smirk, and disappeared.
She felt anger flood through her body and sent out a final distress signal to Paige before jumping into the portal her suit appeared around her as she fell and landed infront of a building, a house, that she soon realised was Sharmin's own house.

Paige made it to the portal, Brock had turned on his distress signal before hand but it had disappeared almost straight after, that could only happen one way, he'd gone into the portal, focusing on Brock, she jumped in and, to her surprise, found herself falling an outfit formed around her, a skin-tight black suit with metal padded shins and forearms, it had a firey pattern going up the suit's legs and arms, her mask formed on her face and a new weight was added to her suit, a kusarigama(a sickle-and-chain), and a revolver, she landed and saw Brock looking at the building infront of them in awe.

"Dammit Sharmin...you of all people have hidden demons? Well...I'm not letting you die from them" Brock turned around seeing her sister, Paige, smirking
"So....is that a yes on the crush thing or am I gonna have to save your butt in an awkward situation" Paige asked
Brock mumbled under her breath "knows more about me than you..."
Paige took a few steps forward
"Come on, we don't have all day" she smiled back at her and walked in Brock walked after her, her hand attached to her Rapier's handle.
They entered the house and on the other side of the room were 3 people stood over Sharmin's body, she'd woken up but, she still laid on the ground, something was forming, a humanoid shape, they were standing in her living room but, the room started changing, almost forming a board, then it struck Brock
"The card game!" Brock gasped, held up his watch and called "Barerin!" The demon showed up, but it was on the board, the creature had fully formed now and Brock could see it, it was Sharmin's shadow, he looked across the 'board' at the 3 people around Sharmin and heard one of them speak
"Serpent, take care of these idiots, make sure this one dies." A boy with orange hair said, he wore an orange bear mask with lightly moving golden flowing patterns on it and had a bright orange outfit with flame-like tassels on each arm, he had a large sword on his back and a pistol on his belt.
Brock pulled out his gun and shot at him, the boy simply said one thing
"Slora." A brightly coloured creature came from behind him, and when the bullet hit him, it simply disappeared
Shit
"You have my permission to kill that one." He grabbed the white haired boy and pulled him out of the building, they looked back, he smirked then they vanished
"Well this'll be a fight I remember." The girl cracked her neck and pulled out a simple dagger, she wore a dark green and blue outfit and had and green and blue masquerade mask with a large pond flower on top of it, the outfit had a wiry pattern around it, the Shadow walked up to Sharmin and said in a hushed voice
"Hello there, I am you" and smiled.

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Dun dun duuuuuun
No stats cause battle's not done yet  but around 1700 words for this one
:) wait for the next one and we'll all have some fun
-mask design by Antispedicey2- awesome person, awesome stories overall 10 out of 10
Love yah man.