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The silence that followed he predicted, as did the exclamations of surprise once the silence had run its course.
"What the Hell is that?" Saji managed eloquently to put all of their thoughts into one simple question.
"Penthesilea," he could not help but add veneration to his tone.
"Penthe-what?" Saji turned to stare at him.
"Penthesilea," Sona corrected him, her eyes wide with interest as she regarded the floating being, "According to human mythology, she was a queen of the Amazons, and fell in the Trojan War at the hands of Achilles. The legend is Greek, I believe. Though that it is not what I thought an Amazon would like."
He smiled. Personas took the image of what their wielders unconsciously wished them to be. Mitsuru had been young when her power awakened Penthesilea, and what she had desired first and foremost then was to protect her father from the Shadows. It was for that reason that the figure before them was clad in steel instead of robes, and bore weapons instead of rod and scepter. It had been summoned for a purpose, and its image reflected that purpose.
The thought led his mind to stray to when he first appeared on this world, when he first called for his Personas. They had answered and among his, theirs as well. He was not surprised. Igor had mentioned bonds that surpassed even Death. The ones he had with SEES certainly counted among them. He had died for them, after all. No, that did not surprise him. What had surprised him was when he first called for Orpheus and Thanatos, it had answered instead, Penthesilea, elegant form materializing in front of him and then embracing him in its ethereal arms.
Seldom was he emotional, but that particular moment was… powerful.
He wondered what Mitsuru would say when he told her that it was her Persona, not one of his own, that had answered him in his moment of weakness. Probably blush, and then chastise him for making her blush.
"So what can it do?" he was startled from his reminiscences by Kiba's voice. The handsome boy was gazing at the Persona with some skepticism, his eyes lingering on the two blades it held in its hands.
"It looks kind of fragile," Saji added in, "How does it even-"
"Bufula."
Spikes of ice erupted from the wall furthest from them, coating the surface with sheets of dense hoarfrost. Rings of thorns, coiled and serpentine like the stem of a rose, contorted in meandering patterns. Jagged barbs, their chilling surface serrated liked the edge of a knife, shot up in rows across the wall's exterior. Great spines that were more spears than ice jutted out by their own, lonesome edifices surrounded by smaller structures. Together, they arranged themselves haphazardly until the entire wall was coated with irregularly shaped rime.
They stared at the scene before them, the wall crystallized entirely by ice, and then stared back at Penthesilea, silent and hovering, whose rapier was pointed to the frozen monument it had just created.
"That is… impressive," Sona finally admitted.
Her face completely unperturbed, Koneko hopped lightly from where she had been sitting, and moved towards the nearest ice spike. Gingerly, she laid a hand on it, and then quickly withdrew when the chill burned her.
"Real," she murmured.
"That's really cool, Arisato-san!" Issei blurted out, "You didn't tell me you had a Sacred Gear inside of you too!"
"No, he didn't," Rias said and eyed him appraisingly. The way her gaze lingered on him longer than necessary was something he did not miss.
"So you must be an elemental type then?" Issei rambled on, "Buchou told me about the different forms of Sacred Gears, and since you can cast ice that would have to mean your Gear is the elemental type! Isn't that awesome? We can be rivals and train one another!"
"No."
Issei halted in mid-speech and stared at him.
"Errr… what?"
"Not a Sacred Gear," he nodded to Penthesilea, "Persona."
"Persona? What's that?"
"A manifestation of thought," he replied simply, "Resolution of the mind taken form."
They stared at him in confusion.
"I know you're new to the concept of Sacred Gears, Arisato-san," Rias said kindly, "But could it be that you grew up with this power and thought of it as a 'manifestation of thought' when in reality it was just the Sacred Gear revealing itself?"
"Sacred Gears that can summon are not exactly common," Sona affirmed her friend's words, "but they are known to exist," she frowned, "Though for a Gear to summon a familiar that can use the elements? That's something I've never heard of. It will require research."
"Hear that, Arisato-san?" Issei grinned at him, "You have a rare Sacred Gear in you just like me!"
He closed his eyes. Sometimes the boy's incessantly cheerful attitude really did annoy him. But he couldn't hold that against him. It was in his nature. He could no more blame him than he could blame Junpei for being obnoxious, or Akihito for being stoic.
"Your Sacred Gears can only cast one element at a time, correct?" he opened his eyes to ask. Sona nodded, "And the ones that can summon. They can only summon one type of familiar?"
"Yes," the bespectacled girl looked at him in confusion, clearly not understanding what his questions had to do with anything.
He suspected as much. The Sacred Gears, from what they told him, were artificial creations. Personas were innately human, entirely organic. The former had limits. The latter did not.
He allowed the power that formed Penthesilea to recede back into his mind, and in response the ironclad figure that was Mitsuru's representation of the Amazon queen faded from view. He dived back into his conscience, searching for the right manifestation to call upon. He didn't need to search far. The ones he used the most, the ones he was most accustomed to, awakened to his call far easier than the ones he kept back in the recesses of his psyche. Summoning them took no more than a second of probing.
The Evoker rose again, and though he no longer required the tool to call for the Personas he used the most, he wanted to make a point. The barrel once more kissed his skin and he pulled the trigger without a second thought.
"Orpheus."
Familiar power flowed through him, cold like ice, accompanied by a sound like tinkling glass. He did not need to look back to know the summon had worked. From a flash of blue light Orpheus emerged, eyes the color of human blood gleaming from a mask of blackened metal.
"Impossible!" he heard Sona exclaim.
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